General

I have been offered a new job.

I went to the coast and camped in damp places, walked on windswept beaches, and generally enjoyed myself, what with the hiking and wine tasting and loafing.

Did I miss anything?

My pets missed me. The cat keeps butting me like a little goat and purrs nonstop.

There were terrifying moments on my trip - when I thought my iPod was dead, when I was walking through the forest and the gusts of wind were flinging dead tree branches to the ground all around me… but all in all I am well satisfied and am now in full-on housekeeping mode, cleaning and laundering and storing camping gear.

*deep contented sigh*

Now I just need to fill out job applications.

ME: Hello?

GUY: Hi, I’m with the (long name basically meaning Conservative Christians Against Hollywood) Association, and do you have a few minutes to talk about getting decent family friendly entertainment on television?

ME: Sure! I can tell you that the cheapest way to go about it is to 1) use the off button on the TV 2) not subscribe to cable or satellite, thereby funding proliferation of those evil filthy shows you hate 3) shut down all the phone banks and fire all the folks in your association, saving a lot of dollars in salary 4) use all the money you saved on not subscribing to evil tv networks, not paying people to harrass people at home when they’re eating dinner, and not paying for electricity to run the TV to CREATE YOUR OWN STUDIO and HIRE ACTORS and MAKE YOUR OWN ENTERTAINMENT if it is so doggone important to you to have absolute control over making television meet your narrow standards. I hope you recorded that so you can listen to it the next time you feel the impulse to call me. Please stop leaving messages on my machine. Good Bye.

GUY: Well if you are conc — *click*

ME: DANG that felt good.

…covered in fudge. mmm, exterminatin’ goodness. Chocablog » Dalek Chocolate Cake

If Gilbert and Sullivan wrote the score for Baby’s Got Back

I have lost a pair of pants.

Good grief. How do you lose a pair of pants on the trip from the washer/dryer/ironing board in the garage and the bedroom which is all of 10 feet away?

Also, I have misplaced/disappeared my jumper cables, which were in a nice tote bag with handles. They weren’t in the Saturn when I traded it in, nor were they in the garage. They weren’t in the Uhaul when we took it back after moving. They weren’t in the former roommate’s apartment when he moved. Like, huh?

I’m thinking I have a pet black hole following me around. Yeah, that’s the ticket. It would also explain the many black dress socks that have no mate.

Crazy Pat: Kein Gott, keine kinder at Pandagon

Every time I run across a quote from Pat Robertson, it makes me wonder if part of my insanity is due to early exposure - I used to sit in my bedroom reading science fiction while madre and padre watched this loon on the tube on the other side of the wall. A thin wall.

I have difficulty seeing how, even if properly in context, he could possibly defend himself for this one. Good grief. You’d think at some point that the ‘faithful’ would detect the insanity — if only the faithful are multiplying, how come there are so many heathens around us?

Wow. Over already?

I’m still doing my Christmas shopping.

When I find the cable, I’ll post pictures of elephant seals sited on my Yule journey to the coast. They look pretty much like this.

I’m out the door on the way to the coast. I have to finish my Christmas shopping, and your ordinary department store just won’t do.

Tonight’s commute was startling. I pulled up to a stoplight and noticed my car happened to be sitting next to a police car. I further noticed that the police car was the same one that had been behind me a moment or two before. Further, the officer was waving, pointing toward the tail of my car, and saying something.

Of course, I’m thinking, DARN, what’s wrong with my car??? ARG! So I roll down the window.

“What does the sticker mean?”

Oh. The bumper sticker. That says “there’s no place like 197.0.0.1.”

Which is how I wound up delivering a networking basics class of .05 minutes on the street tonight. I don’t think he really “got it,” but he seemed satisfied enough.

The number, by the way, is an IP address that is essentially “home” - if you ping it from your system it will always be, in a nutshell, your computer talking to itself.

Now I’m going to go drive by firehouses. (Have you seen the annual fireman’s calendar? HUBBA!)

Appointments: 3
Cancellations: 1
No show: 1
Show: 1 really cute little guy (most of my clients seem to be little guys)
Calls made: 10
Calls returned: 1
Messages left: 8
Answered by mum who moved to another county, thereby knocking another possible client off my caseload: 1
Plans thwarted: 3
Upset stomach: 1
Headache: 1
Bedtime: 8, probably. Crashing fast.

Why do I always get sick around Thanksgiving?

When you say “my car needs to go into the shop but I don’t know how to get to work if I do that” and no one says “I’ll give you a ride.” It was more along the lines of “Enterprise has good rates…”

Of course, that’s assuming I can get to the car rental place in good time. Enterprise picks you up, but is there one close to the good mechanic? Probably not.

The trouble is, of course, my coolant system is leaking. I got a new cap and the rest of the system goes poof. Typical.

My apartment had one in it, but evidently it was a leftover from an eviction. When I picked up the keys and went to look at it, I found that I needed to procure a large box to chill my leftovers. My plan was to move, go to Best Buy tomorrow, take out a line of credit, and get appliances - I have no washer and dryer, either, and being in a duplex it’s buy your own or head to the corner laundromat.

Today was moving day. We packed the uhaul, two friends and I, and it all fit with room to spare. We went to lunch at Whole Foods, being at a loss for which restaurant to hit, and decided the food bar was a good bet. Something for everyone. We were just sitting down at a table when someone walked up and hailed my roommate. Lo and behold, it was a friend/co-worker he hadn’t seen in years. She sat down with her box lunch and we chatted, and when I identified myself as moving and not looking forward to spending a thousand bucks on appliances. She said she was in Fresno to clean up the house there, she’d moved to another town to be closer to work and was trying to sell it, and there was a fridge in her garage that needed a gasket on the freezer door but was in otherwise good condition. It’s a freezer on the bottom model, energy efficient, with the moters and whatnot on the top instead of underneath.

We went to see it. It looked large. We made room in the truck — I’d asked a third person to come help us pack up everything, and she had a small pickup, and she was willing to drive back and forth to New Town and give Chris a lift home into the bargain, so we moved a couple of items into her truck and loaded up the fridge. The plan was to store it in the garage if it didn’t fit in the space in the apartment.

It fit. I have a free fridge. Just because we decided to go to Whole Foods for lunch and meet someone Roommate knew five years ago.

And, we returned the truck early, so I don’t have to fuss with it tomorrow either.

Serendipity!

If only serendipity would have had the power on in my apartment when I got there, I’d be there right now unpacking. But since I packed away my flashlight, and my candles, I’ll have to wait til morning to go back. So I’m at Friend’s house doing laundry and drinking a Heffeweizen, and blogging my very good fortune. Now I’ll only need to spend five hundred bucks on appliances, and possibly twenty bucks on a gasket.

ETA: I found a movie featuring Admiral Nechayev as a lawyer and Hilary Swank. How very odd. I wonder if I watch a movie about a sleepwaker killer, will I sleepwalk?

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories - Building a Robotic Dalek Pumpkin

What are some of the most stressful things in life? Job changes, relationship changes, illness or death of family members, illness of self….

I am currently working with:

*new job stress
*moving lots of miles away stress
*sick family member stress
*head cold-PMS combined stress
*financial stress - good grief, I need a wardrobe! a washer-dryer! probably a new car! eek, my student loans are nearly due! I need to write a check for $1650 for rent/deposit! eek!
*relationship changes - everyone I know is here. I’m moving there.

I’m tired now just looking at that. And the long, long list of tasks I must accomplish in the next couple of days, such as “putting everything in boxes” and “reserving a uhaul.”

ETA: well, the truck is reserved, not everything is in boxes, but I have officially bought more clothes than I have ever bought in one go before. What can I say — every single store is having a huge sale! Bought a pair of shoes, got another for 88 cents. Bought half-off camisoles, half-off shirts, forty percent off slacks, and o-m-g a sweater that I had to have even though it wasn’t on sale. Never mind it’s still too warm to wear it yet.

Also, my feet are big, and most normal shoes don’t come in my size. I wasn’t the only one asking for ’surfboard-type huge’ at the counter, either. We who have huge feet ought to be covered under those statutes that supposedly protect minorities or something, cause it’s just not fair that we have to pay the ‘abnormal’ tax, i.e. go somewhere that charges three times the price for decent shoes, just because we’re not a size 7. Because I don’t think we’re abnormal! We’re a couple of generations out from foot-binding and bad one-size-fits-all-whether-it-does-or-not boots, our feet are allowed to meet their fullest potential, and the shoe industry needs to … er… get in step with the times.

Stopping ranting now, going back to boxing things.

If you want to stay sane, don’t go to your local law enforcement site and don’t look at the maps of recent crimes. I did this for New Town, and immediately wanted to invest in something with big scary alarms and video cameras, for the car and for home.

And then I did the same for Current Town, and totally feel safe moving to New Town. And yet, somewhat panicked. Now I know that umpty-trillion people have been burgled, shot, raped, hit, and run into within five minutes of my current apartment. And, oh, there are like fifteen sexual predators a rock throw away.

And now my headache’s back. Will the creeping crud never creep away and die already?

I keep telling myself, self, I’m going to make this blog pithy and fun and popular, someday.

Well, how many years has it been? Four? Six? (the archives of the previous incarnations are not here, as I felt they represented the early, non-pithy, non-amusing phase quite well.)

Still here, still not popular, still not quite as amusing as one would hope. But then, I got over that and lapsed into the Blue Period — long moany posts and gripes about traffic and whatnot. Things you no doubt hear over the dinner table at night, if you have any other living bipedal units in your vicinity.

There are other things I said I’ld accomplish someday. A partial list:

Finish the afghan. (times four, at last count - I’m emptying closets and still finding yarn, and this after the Great Yarn Stash Reduction of 05)
Keep a journal. Which I’m doing, honest — I’m keeping it in its original pristine condition
Write a real, original novel I can send away for others to look at. I’ve written partial novels that I gave up on prior to their achieving a state at which I would feel comfortable sharing them with anyone with a brain.
Clean out my car. The thing looks like I haven’t cleaned it in years — but I have, just not recently.

There are other things I could list - if I could only remember them.

I spent the day in my car, except for an hour at my friend’s place and another hour filling out paperwork at the unnamed new workplace. I did have my picture taken, and I totally look like zombie!girl, thanks to the lovely red upper lip and the total helium-headedness of me on sudafed — but there was no other way to go through the day other than on sudafed, otherwise I would have been coughing and holding a bucket under my nose.

Apartments fall into three basic categories in new!town. 1. Overpriced, tiny, pet fees. 2. Overpriced, no pets. 3. Wrong side of town.

The best compromise so far? Paying way too much in deposits and average rent for a place that is a bit small but otherwise nice. At least I get deposits back.

I am sleeping in tomorrow. Then I am calling some property management places.

My sinuses have declared a war on breathing.

It’s cold.

My head sort of aches, like I had more than Benadryl last night.

Tomorrow, I have to get my picture taken.

I have the feeling all these things combined will result in my having an ID badge to match my driver’s license picture — red poofy eyes, red nose, vaguely zombie-like expression, and a half-smile that translates roughly into “I hate digital cameras and I woke up two hours ago, meh.”

In other news, spammers keep sending me poetry. All of it looks like this:

You’ve Seen Them On TV…
GAIN 3 INCHES in size
Ask your wife - SIZE DOES MATTER!
http://asagfuib.com/mxl/
suspects; he himself as Fred the effective
than dampen it. But almost have

Shades of e.e. cummings, with a touch of assumption — if I have a wife, I’ve certainly never seen her, and I’d want to, if only to ask why the #$!! she hasn’t done her share of the cleaning. And the last thing I need is an extra 3 inches anywhere. I can’t find decent shoes, my clothes barely fit any more, and good grief, look, I need a haircut again.

What?

Woes!

I have visited a ton of websites now, from rentals to moving supplies, and am trying to work off the nonverbal state into which I have fallen. I am truly boggled by the array of moving supplies - how many boxes? what sizes? do I need tiger tacos? - and by the STUFF. Three closets, two cupboards, and a bunch of random boxes I never unpacked knowing full well it was pointless to attempt to put everything out on shelves…. Good grief. Maybe I should get a two bedroom apartment, shove everything in one bedroom boxed up and out of the way, and start over?

It turns out it’s not so expensive to get from here to there; uhaul will give me a truck for less than two hundred bucks, with many free miles.

Part of me is still going WTF? WTF? Someone wants to pay you lots of money! I mean, this is literally doubling my salary, this job. I’m having a hard time deciding that this is real.

And the rational bit is making lists, of people to call and addresses to change and policies and accounts to move, and things to throw away and other things to sell. Lately I’ve been losing things - erg, arg, grrr, and grrrrr - and moving is just the ticket. Nothing like being forced to look at every object you put in a box.

I have a job.

It starts in two weeks.

I am verklempt.

I drove 200 miles (plus a lengthy side trip) today. I submitted an app to another county mental health and all of a sudden, three calls in two days for interviews. Of course, I called two back and got one interview, no callback, and the third was a message left on the home phone while I was driving to the first interview.

It was a decent interview - I think I acquited myself well, although you know I spent the drive home thinking of what I could have said instead and/or in addition to. I stopped off to visit a friend who’d moved that direction a couple years back - she bought me dinner and we yakked a while about what we’d been doing lately.

And now I have to go back. There appears to be a number of positions available in various departments - it’s just a question of who they pick for what positions.

Roommate, just to be nice that way, loaned me his nice new Honda for the trip so I’d arrive in cool, unrumpled style rather than windblown and hot after two hours in the Car of No AC. I could get used to that. Although, it took a lot more gas to fill his mini-SUV than my Saturn. Still, it got really good mileage, even after I wandered through miles of orchards and fields.

This is the English caption for my reaction to a Japanese Anime I’ve been watching. I kept seeing icons and caps and so forth for Bleach all over the internet, so I thought, eh, I’ve seen anime before. I’ll give it a try.

Well, let’s just say I’ve learnt my lesson.

The top ten reasons Lori won’t be finishing the series Bleach:

10. The conventions of Japanese anime include some seriously annoying shit. Yes, it’s a completely different culture with different conventions in fiction. Yes, they mostly speak in Japanese with English subtitles and frequently there are sweat drops and little angry cross hatches and so forth. That would all be fine if not for certain other things in combination with the little things, such as–

9. Fights must always upstage all fights that have gone before. In Bleach, they use swords that transform into all kinds of things, and each time someone whips out a sword, it has to do eleventy zillion different things that no other sword before it has ever done. It has to flame, or break into a bunch of little pointy things, or into a long sea serpent-y flaming thing, or into a snaky sharp thing that turns out the lights and makes awful noise — everyone’s sword does something different. This is because –

8. They are traveling through the spirit world. They, meaning the handful of teenagers — a bouncy-breasted ditzy girl, a tall hunky quiet kid who can literally punch you through a wall, and the ground, and anything else that might be there, a hotheaded main kid who fights with great power and very little discipline, a cat who sounds male until he transforms into his second shape of a spiky-haired saucy gal, a skinny kid with glasses who’s quiet but smart and can make a wicked energy bolt/arrow out of thin air — defeat everything in their path, somehow leaving enemies alive and winning them over to helping them, and again, every battle must top the last one. And anything can happen because it’s the spirit world, where they went within the first ten or so episodes of the series to save the last main character, a goth samurai girl who gives her powers to the hotheaded kid Ichiguro, and then she’s taken back to the spirit world to pay for granting a mere mortal her powers, which is something you just don’t do. She’s going to be executed. Ichiguro MUST SAVE HER. He doesn’t love her or anything - he just owes her his life. So –

7. He trains, with a variety of folks who just happen to be legendary fighters who have long since fallen out of the limelight of the spirit world they’re from, which is where he’s going to save Rukia, the goth girl. The training is like the fighting - each round must be badder and flashier than the last. And, of course, just like the fighting, the training must have flashbacks….

6. All of the fights must be interspersed with flashbacks. And more flashbacks. The life history of each character must be explored, sometimes between the upswing and downswing of a sword. Flash- AAAAAA- *flashback of character’s entire childhood highlighting each moment leading up to the moment of the battle so that everyone will know just what’s at stake and every iota of motivation this character has for what he/she is doing* -AAAAGH!-*sword comes down, clashes against opponent’s sword* This is tolerable once. It’s happened once an episode for about a season and a half. It’s the heart of every episode, because -

5. There are a hundred characters and counting in this damn show. Seriously. There are thirteen captains, and lieutenants for each of them, and underlings, and servants, and people who are added into the group as they go along, and we have to know where they grew up and how they came to be where they are today, evidently. And then we have to take side trips back to the Real World to see how the siblings of Ichiguro are doing. Everyone who fights gets a biography. Everyone has to be a tragic character.

4. Comic relief. For a while, it was a hyper annoying stuffed animal possessed by the spirit of some experimental fighting dude. Ichiguro’s little sister dresses the thing in pinafores and bows, which it hates and screams about frequently. Seriously.

3. Long frakkin’ speeches. Every single fight, every single participant, back and forth with the speeches, on and on and on, showing off the shininess and metaphysical fun of their weapons, to hyper-dramatic music played by mitten-wearing pianists. Looooooooooooong speeches, man. Long. Like, the driest, boringest math prof you ever met, times ten, and you in the back row just wanting the grade and not daring to shriek SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPAAAAAAH!

2. All I want to know is how they rescue the chick! Third season. No rescue in sight. Oh, they got her away from the death machine of the ages, but everyone’s still kung fu fighting! I don’t even care who wins any more. I just want to see what happens to the goth girl. Everything else is pointless!

1. The songs in the opening credits change every few episodes, progressing from annoying to more annoying to AGH HIT FAST FORWARD! I suspect the trend will continue, as will all the other trends.

Star Trek, how I love you. At least you’re not obviously monotonous.

From: Mr.Ahmed Rafaaia
Email:ahmedrafaaiaXXX@she.com
Tel:+855-XXXXXXXXX.

Attention:Sir&Madam
Having gone through your profile ,I am contacting you based on trust and I believe you will treat this offer with keen interest and utmost sincerity.

Right. Like there’s a profile on the internet anywhere that contains my super sekrit email address.

My name is AHMED RAAFIA 23 years,a citizen of Lebanon.My father got maried to African American from a speaking colony of Cote D’ Ivoire were I grow up and the family was blessed with two children I and my younger sister sarah who is 15 years old although she is late.

The grammar leads one to believe your sister is pregnant, though I doubt that’s what was meant. Also, not sure what a ’speaking colony’ is.

Following the recent crises between the Israeli forces and the hezbollahs militant group in lebanon, During one of the Israel air strike in lebanon, my parent became victim of war as my parents lost there lives on their trip to our home in lebanon. Our building was razed to nothing leaving 13 people dead and over 65 injured.MAY THEIR SOUL REST IN PEACE!!!! Nothing like taking advantage of the news, right? We all know there were air strikes and people were hurt - I feel for them. Which makes your little scam all the more irritating.

My father was a cash crop merchant and an international business man on exchange of international currency.He deposited the sum of $9.6 Million US Dollars under the coustody of a security company here in a secured trunk box without the knowlegde of the security company that the box is containg money for security reasons.Because of the love he has for me,he told me in confidence that the security company can only realise the consignment to his foriegn partner based on my authorization as my next of kin.So you and daddy were the only ones who knew, and conveniently, there really is no foreign partner? Freeing you to choose one? What “secure” agency, bank or otherwise, would accept this arrangement? None.

Please I need your sincere help now!My life is in danger due to frequent war and political crises in Lebanon and Cote D’ Ivoire as I do not want to stay here for them to hold election because anything can happen.Please help me and save my life.I want to introduce you to the security company agent as my late father’s business associate so that you will help me claim the consignment and we can make an arrangement for the transfer of the fund to you for investment. Are you also going to give me the plans to the Death Star? The Holy Grail? Maybe keys and security codes for Area 51?

I need your assistance in getting a residence for me and also help me in investing the fund in profit yeilding business in your country. and your willingness to treat me as your son will be appreciated.Moreso, as soon as the consignment is delivered to you, you will invest the fund. Oh, look! He wants me to adopt him! awwww.

I will offer you 30% of the total fund for your assistance alone.As soon as I here from you I will give you all the information you need about the fund you may require from me thereafter.I am presently living in camp now.Please get back to me as soon as posible and endeavour to include your telephone Because it’s so easy to call from ‘camp.’ Whatever that means. Just like it’s easy to email.

Please reply with this id what ID? oh, the string of letters in the subject? and called me with this number +855-1XXXXXXXXX.

Await your call.
BEST REGARDS
AHMED RAFAAIA.

Guess what? Your IP address says “Thailand.” BUZZZZZZ. So sorry. No suckahs at this email address. Have fun polluting spam filters.

Geeze, scammers really chap my hide.

PLEASE stop trying to make me crazy.

The next time you want to randomly stop accepting blank disks and then just as randomly start eating them for breakfast, I will be one click away from buying a Macbook I cannot afford. Or, possibly, a 17″ Powerbook refurb.

Feh.

Yesterday I wore a shirt inside out. All day. Until Roommate tugged on the tags.

The heat has completely flattened me, wrung me out, smacked me over the head and threw me in the dumpster. I’ve come home every day this week with a crashing headache and very little will to live. Today I woke up, dragged out of bed, ate a bagel, and slept til 4 pm. My sinuses throb incessantly when I’m awake.

Now it’s nearly midnight, and finally, the nighttime temp is in the 70’s, and it looks like I’ll be able to survive summer after all.

As terminally boring as you may be.

1. Yoga
2. backup important documents to iPod
3. backup to thumb drive
4. backup to external drive
5. backup to CDRW
6. consider backing up to Roommate’s new laptop, discard idea

Roommate’s family gave him a laptop for his birthday this year. We now have four computers between two people. Go geeks!

It’s supposed to be 111F this weekend. I think I’ll fill the tub with ice water and soak through it. Or possibly lay beneath the air conditioner as Babylon 5 episodes play one after another on the new dvd player.

Roommate’s birthday celebration was filled with laughter, sushi, and funny drunken karaoke, mostly Roommate’s — five bottles of saki, one beer, and one good-sized glass of vodka later, he wasn’t making a lot of coherent sense. He thought he was, which made it all the funnier. Once home, he bounced around like his shoes had springs, laughing and chatting and being goofy, until suddenly his expression morphed from cheery to ‘oh, no’ and he tottered away and disappeared into his bathroom. Alas, for it was good vodka. The sushi bar owner is a friend of Roommate’s and meant well in giving him the vodka, I’m sure. I mopped his brow and brought him ice water, and the following morning, the hangover descended. All his plans of gardening and finishing up various projects evaporated. But he had a lot of fun, and his boss, who responded to my last-minute call to Roommate’s workplace by bringing as many of the department as were available, paid the considerable tab we racked up - there were seven of us slamming beer and sushi and teriyaki chicken, not to mention the lovely flaky crispy eggroll.

So all in all, the last minute party was a success. The cats are still being periodically freaked out by the huge ‘40′ balloon we gave him; the mylar seem to hold helium pretty well. And yesterday, he finished his garden and picked up the dvd player of his dreams so that he can now take advantage of our collection while working out on his Nordic track.

Me, I’m still writing, spending time in downward dog, and whittling away at projects. I think today’s menu will include margherita pizza. It’s a mellow day, in spite of the blistering heat wave.

I think I may have fixed the comment linking prob….

So far, so bad. In the first five minutes we have a planet conveniently appear just as Starbuck needs to crash. Three ships on the radar meant four ships in actuality - the cylons shot at Starbuck and Boomer and tore up the underside of Starbuck’s viper. “Hey, look, a delta class planet!” I guess they have to call it something but who knows what a delta class is? Probably the same as every other planet they’ve run across — habitable and overrun by humans and cylons in anachronistic settings.

Sure enough, here we are at Castle Cylon. Looks like we’re re-using one of the backlots from some medieval flick. Lucifer is all in white and red stripes - he’s a candy striper! Not a good look for him. A centurion informs him vipers are approaching. He goes inside. Why are cylons using candles? There’s also some sort of assembly line. Centurions don’t make good workers; poor dexterity.

Starbuck climbs out of his downed viper and goes limping through a swamp, trying to evade centurions. They hike into the water after him. I have to hand it to Dirk Benedict, that water doesn’t look pleasant. He struggles into a jungle and falls into some ferns and evergreens. The centurions catch him.

Oh, that wasn’t Lucifer - it was an early model of the same ‘bot. The real Lucifer informs Baltar what’s happened and they get on the horn to Specter, who is now in red and gold stripes - must have dressed up for the occasion.

OH MAN - a guy in a winged helmet riding a unicorn spots the centurions carrying Starbuck. He sounds the alarm with a horn, and shots are fired, and the centurions fall. People in buckskin ride up on unicorns. One of them poses dramatically and welcomes him to Attila.

Let’s pause for a moment to appreciate this. On a planet called Attila, folks in pseudo-viking helmets wearing buckskin and feathers like Native Americans are riding white horses with golden (rubber) horns. I picture the writers standing in front of a list of cultures past and present, throwing darts to select “what kind of hat should they wear? what kind of animal should they ride?”

Adama is in bed - apparently sick. Boomer and Apollo arrive and bother him, which also bothers Cassie. Tigh says the cylons have penetrated more deeply than expected — deeply? That implies going into some region more deeply than moving further away and out, as I would imagine they are doing, as they leave the colonies. I don’t understand their spatial references - I don’t think they do either.

??? !!! these are blond kids. The oldest boy has the most perfectly feathered hair I’ve ever seen. It’s a Princess Di cut. The girl is called Miri. Now they’re wearing feathers. A bunch of little kids run in for food. Starbuck flirts with Miri - or is it Mary? Maybe it’s Mary. Big Boy says they have a mission. Everyone else seems to like the idea of going back with Starbuck.

Boxey comes to see grandpa, sneaking past Cassie, who’s sleeping on the couch. Adama tucks the kid in with him and kid tells him a story of a planet full of daggits. You think the kid’s a little obsessed?

Candy striper cylon is talking to centurions - suddenly there’s an explosion. The unicorn riders blew something up. Big Boy wants to trade Starbuck to the “tin cans” and get their father back. Miri, Warrior Princess, looks upset - she doesn’t want to do it. I think I smell a crush.

Shot of Specter the candy striper that proves he is nothing but a person wearing flowing robes and a flashing pointy head-puppet-thing perched high on his head. “Freakishly tall” is the term. That explains the too-neatly-squared shoulders. The dad of the juvenile unicorn wranglers is in his custody and he’s striking a deal with him to get the warrior. We’ll let you go. You stop the attacks on our base. We’ll get the warrior and we’ll be happy. Sounds hinky to me.

Unicorns with bouncy rubber horns look just as funny at night. Boy with wings on head says to Starbuck, we’re moving camp. A bell rings - Boy blows a horn in answer. Starbuck argues with him - you think I’m taking over, boy? He tries some adult-ish psychology trick on the kid that sounds a lot like “being patronizing” and the Boy doesn’t fall for it, but then lets slip about Dad and Starbuck figures out he’s going up on the altar to get dad back.

Lucifer tells Baltar Specter is stockpiling and doing some other things that are hinky, and at this point I’m laughing along with Baltar - even though I totally disagree with his fashion sense. Suede boots with green velour body suit? Yeek. Specter calls and kisses Baltar’s butt, and Lucifer swears in fake-colonial - felgercarb. These cylons are less cylon than most of the human kind in the remake.

Boy’s plan involves boats. This proves he knows nothing at all - any plan involving boats just asks for something to go wrong. I knew someone who held a wedding in boats, and let’s just say the rental place wasn’t happy with the condition of the tuxedoes. Anyway. Here comes Specter with Dear Old Dad, and shouting across the water ensues. Boy gives the signal, and a centurion holds Dad back. Specter sends out a boat with a dummy in it. See, this is another reason the Eternal Night thing is useful. The kids send Starbuck across, and get the dummy in return. “Starbuck was right.” Well, yes. Aaaaand, the boat gets there, and it’s another dummy! Wearing Starbuck’s jacket. Yay. Starbuck pops up with a nekkid chest - ooooooooo.

Shuttle on the way. Boomer and Apollo are looking for their lost friend. “We’ll get there in two centauris, give or take a centon.” I nearly expected “give or take a narn.” Snicker.

Starbuck’s eyeballing the castle and planning a rescue. Oh, no - secret passages. This is where Starbuck teaches them to sing their plan to get Dad back. I think I’ll just fast forward through that. Don’t think we’ll miss much. skips past long boring sequences of children chanting instructions as they sneak around… at night

Baltar talks to Specter some more. “You actually believe that daggit drivel?” Lucifer says. Oy. Jealous robots.

The kids have blown the fuel dump and centurions are rushing around - as they reach the bridge, a little girl lobs bombs on them. You know, the fleet really needs to get all the kids out on the job. Cylons are really susceptible to stupid plans involving many small children.

Starbuck and Miri/Mary are racing through the castle, shooting cylons, scurrying around, looking for the cell. Starbuck shoots out the lock and they’re off.

Specter lies to Baltar about destroying the last of the humans and their habitats, and orders evacuation. Heh. The kids are reunited with their daddy. Starbuck and Jailbait - er, Miri, grin at each other. Apollo and Boomer arrive - “what hit this place, an army?” - uh huh.

I think characters on this show take turns playing Mary Sue.

Starbuck wants them to go with the fleet, but Dad does what every protective and responsible dad does when faced with a choice between joining the rest of the human race, thus offering his children a choice other than inbreeding, and staying on a planet with a population of Them. He stays. Starbuck gives Miri a good bye kiss. Apollo rolls his eyes. “How does he do it?” What, kiss? No wonder you can’t keep a girl, dude.

I applied for consolidation of student loans, as interest rates are about to jump. I waited til a week after graduation, figuring it would take a while to be processed. I received a decline letter today that said I was still enrolled and therefore not able to consolidate.

Um. I am not registered for summer classes, fall classes or spring. I haven’t applied for any sort of financial aid. I haven’t done a doggone thing, other than, y’know, graduate. Like, WTF?

Some changes in the works. An upgrade, a new look, possibly a shift of content…. Stay tuned.

And many more!

Due to the nature of my profession, I have been thinking of taking a pen name, if I ever manage to crank out anything worth publishing. I can just envision some years down the road being faced with some former client who, after catching my name on a magazine or tatty old short story collection on the shelf at the library, picks it up and reads and sees some character she swears was her. Even if the statute of limitations is up, even if there is one for that sort of thing, even if she’s woefully incorrect and I was really making that fictional character more like my old auntie Tillie who was all sorts of crazy and not have the client in mind at all, it would still be uncomfortable, and the thought of anyone believing any of my fictional creations bears a resemblance to anyone living… let’s just say I don’t do that on purpose.

Yes, I am paranoid that way.

It just so happens that the character in the draft of the story I’ve been pecking at sort of … resembles some people I know. She may be somehow an unconscious amalgalm of people - I’d say that’s fairly likely, in fact. So I think about sending it off, and the likelihood of any of my clients ever seeing it, and… eh. Yeah, I’m probably more likely to be hit by a meteorite or bitten by a radioactive spider. But. Stupid things happen to me all the time.

For example.

My gas cap got stolen once. I guess the rest of the car just wasn’t desirable. I get sick or hurt every holiday - you can’t say it’s psychosomatic, as I hardly think, given how much I hate tossing my cookies, that I would go with stomach flu as a great way to avoid yahtzee tournaments with my mother. My apartment got broken into twice, about 30 days apart, and one of my pets was stolen - the less expensive cockatiel, which probably netted $20 at the flea market, rather than the parrot that goes for 500. I got into an accident and was accused of rear-ending the other driver, even though she was traveling at a right angle to me and hit my driver’s side fender with the front of her car. In a different car, I was rear-ended while dropping off a friend late one night, and the settlement helped me pay for the freaky three day stay in a hospital earlier that same year wherein I passed out cold on the kitchen floor and a friend who was staying with me freaked and took me in for loads of useless tests that proved nothing. I had a roommate with a crazy cat, and my pets at the time were a rodent and a bird — the cat got into my room one day and … dug up my cactus, completely ignoring the prey animals within easy reach.

If it’s stupid and improbable, it will probably happen. So, what pen name do you think I should choose?

…of Christmas, the spammers gave to me:
twelve fake diplomas
eleven vioxx tablets
ten preapproved applications
nine paypal phishes
eight fake bank notes
seven software cds
six porn pics
fiiiiiiiiive aaaaaasian briiiiiiides!
four house loans
three viagra soft tabs
two free quotes
and a million from a guy in Africa!

Merry Christmas Everyone! Happy Holidays, peace and joy to you, and here’s a hug from me and the cats. (Actually the cats don’t like hugging, but they’ll happily shed on your pants in the spirit of giving.)

Last night I went to a very early Christmas party and belted out “Joy to the World” as the last contestant in a karaoke contest for a huge basket of popcorn goodies. I think I must have channeled Beverly Sills. The only way to do truly impressive karaoke is to throw yourself into it wholeheartedly regardless of the fact that you cannot in fact reach two octaves and are an alto/high tenor, and your voice is really best suited to choral applications. I had a standing ovation (though I am certain that was likely due to the open bar) and many compliments (ditto) and was only able to perform because I had downed numerous plastic cups of sangria. I lost, to the loud obnoxious woman with mounds of blond hair and the quieter lady in black sequins, who wore fabric antlers and danced and sang Jingle Bells.

And then hostess/friend gave me a birthday present wrapped in Christmas paper (which happens a lot) and the result is something I’ve decided must be Harry Potter’s goblet of fire. Cracked glass cup, sequined base, candle inside. Either that or knights will show up any time to take home the grail. It’s not “me” and I’m guessing that I need to spend time shopping with my friend (ugh, shopping) so that she stops getting me “I-don’t-know-what-to-get-you” gifts with the disclaimer that she won’t be hurt if I use it to re-gift.

Roommate is making me coffee and potato pancakes. This is the first birthday in a long long time that I haven’t felt like just pulling the covers over my head and ignoring it. We’re going to get a Christmas tree today.

Thanks, Rocky and Seema, for the birthday wishes.

Am sitting with the heating pad on the bum shoulder. I managed not to exacerbate the problem in my sleep by propping myself straight with pillows, but dreamed of being stuck in huge crowds at a concert. Meh.

I’m going to work, if I can manage a range of motion to drive the car. I won’t go if I can’t turn my head to check blind spots. Can’t count the number of times I’ve nearly been plowed into by idiots who hover in blind spots. Or, I won’t go by car — it IS walking distance, after all, given the weather’s nice, and it absolutely is the nicest weather possible at the moment. Of course, that means getting a ride to the chiropracter’s office, and allowing a half hour for what’s been a five minute drive, and who knows what walking will do to my back… but those of us who have no insurance coverage for chiropractic can’t be choosers.

The storm warnings on the radio for outlying communities and the drifting clouds were the first warning. The temp dropped noticeably by seven. I opened the windows and sliding door.

Around seven fifteen, I heard the concussion; it sounded like a car hitting another. I even checked the front to see if my car was still okay. It was. Must be thunder.

7:45 - More thunder. 7:53 - The rain pattered randomly at first, then poured from the sky. It pummeled the ground and the plants. Lightening has been flashing, thunder has been rumbling, and through the window from the backyard, the smell of mint is wafting into the apartment, mixing with the smell of rain.

I’m making rice pudding. What a nice evening. A reminder that sometimes the things we dread in great amounts can also be pleasant in small amounts.

Moody, and in a dank sort of way.

eats licorice

writes fic

I keep trying to read the assigned chapters for class, but gah, my brain, she takes it in and spits it out again, leaving me without a real idea of what it was about. It probably doesn’t help that the title of the book is “Qualitative Research Methods.” There’s only so much meta about research that the gray matter can take in a sitting.

My attention span is so fragmented, I’m alternating between three different books and writing three different fics, with breaks for surfing and sighing over blogs. I’ve been upset and cranky about/to some of the folk I brush up against in the course of a week, for their short-sighted, sometimes racist, sometimes ignorant statements, but in the end everyone’s doing what they can to cope. Knowing that this will create unknown but likely drastic changes in the economy, that people are dying and suffering, that fingers will point and insults thrown — I just want to hide under the futon. Or go help, but I know that driving or flying down there would be pointless, and wreck up my own situation, which is already tenuous given my near-starving-student status.

Of course, I’ve been suffering with the futility for a while, since long before the hurricane. I work for the county. I work with people who are disabled, physically or mentally or both, and it’s easy to bog yourself down and take on the hopelessness. I went into the field placement telling myself I needed to keep the optimism and my faith in the tenacity and unpredictability of human nature - that people can change, and even though change is really hard for someone who’s been depressed since they were raped as a six year old, there is hope.

I’m doing what I can for the hurricane — my yoga studio is donating all proceeds from Saturday classes for the next month, so I’ll be doing that. I’m going to start putting up more stuff on ebay and donating that money, whatever there is of it. I’ll put some books up for sale at amazon. While that isn’t a reason to feel smug it’s still something.

My new hard drive makes random ticky noises, infrequently. The last one was quieter.

backs up again

and again

It’s spam, but funny spam. Kinda like e.e. cummings with Tourette’s.

How to impertinence save on your MEDlCATlONS over 60%.

Have a ni harlot ce day!

Finding a dvd backup from July 3 made me dance around like a squirrel on crack.

Finding that the files I so desparately want to recover aren’t reading properly from the dvd makes me throw things.

.. but it’ll be another 10-15 days until I get the laptop back. My online access will be limited and sporadic. But they promise me that in a case like mine where the hard drive has failed to the point that it won’t partition, erase, or format, it’ll be a simple replacement.

…but booting from the external hard drive.

My choices are pay for disk rescue software, or just start over with a two month old backup, that’s missing my carefully balanced checkbook software, WIPs, etc. I may have to send the laptop in for a new hard drive if an erase doesn’t fix what ails it.

The demo version of the disk rescue program I found will rescue one file before you have to pay. If you could rescue one file out of thousands, which one would you pick?

It’s FRIDAY. We o’ the USA have a three day weekend. Which I do not appreciate, as I was forced by circumstance to shorten my hours at work this week, and next week will be again short, and my budget is not really a budget so much as it’s a straightjacket. And yet, I appreciate the three day weekend, because it’s summer and just turned three-digit weather, and that tends to make me v. tired.

Two days of downloading, two days to go. An entire season of anything would take months on dialup, so I’m thinking this is not bad for cheapcheap DSL.

In the meantime, I have X files episodes, and Sopranoes, and Deadwood, and I’ll be having a motherf’n spooky good time with the cocks*ckers and mobsters and the FBI.

The Management apologizes for those crabby, crabby posts made under the influence of bad-moodiness.

Regained my balance today. The second client’s appointment went without a hitch. The only mildly-annoying thing was the loss of a piece of important paperwork the office guy was holding on to for me. But I didn’t lose that, and I won’t have to find it.

I’ve been finding myself in excessively bad moods a lot this year. Previously, I’ve had fairly stable and ongoing mood states — ongoing near-depression, ongoing burnout, ongoing slow burn fury, each giving way to the next in a cycle I couldn’t break…. This seemed to be related to having to stomp down my dislike for the job I had in order to function. Once I’d ditched the job, suddenly the world felt lighter and brighter. The paying job I have now is in some ways good (like the people) and other ways icky (hate the boring repetative office work that I’ve done for 80 million years). And then, there’s this transition — moving from what I was to what I will be. Part of me still can’t believe that I’m nearly done with school, I think.

One thing about mental health — sometimes you see people who really make you count every blessing. Consider yourself one. I do.

Dang, I was cranky yesterday! I’m sorry - between the financial aid office and allergies, I seem to have developed an evil twin.

What’s up with the allergies? Yeah, well, the weather went from beautiful cool breezes and 80 degrees to “let’s make breakfast on the sidewalk” overnight. I walked out of a nice air conditioned office this afternoon and felt like someone walloped me in the face with Tatooine.

Time to stock up on the non-drowsy meds. I’ll go to the drugstore after the sun goes down and I’m sure my shoes won’t melt on the way to the car.

From my bedroom window, you can see the ladder Santa used to getto the chimney.

He looked like Santa, anyway - with a beanie hat. He said he was going to

put a gutter around the chimney so water would run off instead of down into

the wall.

I put Phantom of the Opera on my netflix queue at Roommate’s request. The description:

Andrew Lloyd Webber’s stunning musical comes alive on-screen in this Joel Schumacher rendition. A talented recluse (Gerard Butler) disfigured in a tragic accident roams beneath the Paris Opera. Fueled with resentment, he terrorizes other musicians until he falls for the lovely Christine (Emmy Rossum), a formidable singer whom he takes under his wing, molding her so she can become the sensational soprano he envisions her to be.

I’ve seen reviews that describe this as ‘romantic.’ I remember the soundtrack from the play - the phantom is obsessed with a young woman incapable of seeing through his behavior. He’s manipulative, kills people, and behaves in general like a terrorist. In a culture where domestic violence is rampant, I guess calling that ‘romance’ makes sense.

She looks innocent enough

And I have yet to discover one of them. I mean, it looks easy - make pizza dough. Roll out a 10 inch circle, plop in filling, bake this long at that temperature. So how did I end up with two lumpy things that vaguely resemble turds?

Tastes okay - got all kinds of cheese and mushrooms in it. But the edges that were once pinched together, they sprang apart, and cheese leaked out, and hmmm, I wonder if the slight gooiness of the dough has something to do with the accidental placement of the bowl it was in while rising? Never preheat the oven with the dough over the burner that doubles as the oven vent. I had a small golden brown layer of bread in the bottom of the bowl before I made the sandwiches.

Oy. Maybe next time I’ll try exploding eggs.

It’s spring on campus

and the flowers around the parking lot are in bloom.

100_0321

Originally uploaded by lori4.

Cat included for scale.

Eventually he’ll finish digging and start planting. I hope.

100_0308

Originally uploaded by lori4.

Love Poem for Condi

Haven’t got all the links, categories and whatnot back up yet, but I restored the theme switcher, which was the style switcher. It’s all about the themes with the upgraded WordPress. Found some really beautiful ones at alexking.org. Blueberry is my favorite so far, Narnia my second fave. Wonderfully easy to drag and drop into the appropriate folders. Good thing, it’s all I have time for before I have to run off to work.

The blog’s back. I was doubtful for a while, but I even upgraded. I lost all my content, but it’s not like I had a lot of great posts or anything - mostly stressed whinging and bitching.

The descriptive phrase above is due to the fact that I know there will be hits from people searching for Jodie Sweeten, regardless of the fact that I have never so much as mentioned her except while wondering why people showed up here while looking for her. Thanks to site stats and distractable curiosity, I have discovered that Jodie is alive and well and married, and her site is part of a webring for herself and her costars. What I haven’t discovered is why people search for her daily, or for her pictures, what she’s doing now, etc. Sure, she was a cute kid - they all were, except the annoying friend.

Tori Amos and I just finished a midterm. I ditched class for the first time all semester. And yet, I fail to be stressed out by that. I emailed my midterm so it would be on time. hugs internet

And now, I am going back to Fern’s Shifts, from which I am not likely to recover. I mean, this is good fic - I’ll not be able to sort canon from fanon, by the time I’m through.

Wordpress is now upgraded. It took an email to tech support to solve the issue. v. irritating.