(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense RSS feed

2007.02.28

I guess I'm quiet today. I sat down thinking I had several things to say, only to find myself staring at Emacs for the last twenty minutes. Pretty pretty syntax highlighting.

Micah's been very needy lately. Right now he's pinning down both of my arms and madly nuzzling into my face (this makes it difficult to type). I'm not sure what's up; my only guess is that with Jeff not coming here any more (he often got home hours before I did) Micah's gotten more lonely. His sister's not much help, seeing as she's paranoid most moments that Micah is about to pounce upon her wee bitty self. It's not an unfounded paranoia. Jasper is much missed... he was a good match for the big grey lunk. I've been spending more time at home, now that launch pressure is off, but the vast majority of that time has been spent sleeping in a probably fruitless attempt to pay back the enormous debt I incurred over the lead-up to RTM and Web launch.

Feeling down, I realized that I was wishing desperately for some ego-boosting, for a compliment to cheer me up. Most people I know are asleep at the moment, and really, I feel silly about going to a friend and saying "COMPLIMENT ME!"

Which isn't to say I don't do it on many an occasion.

Anyway, I decided I'd get the Internet to compliment me. My favorite outputs from various compliment generators:

  • You are an attentive instance of America!
  • You are clearly a perfect fountain of a winner!
  • Your face does bend even the most anorexic mirror into a sensuous playground of muscular spasms.
  • You have very friendly legs.
  • You have an ultimately groovy pinky toe.
  • I like you even more than the printer.

But by far the very best?

Your cleverness ferments meat without the need of oxygen.

Oh, yeah, baby. Now that cheered my shit directly the fuck up.

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James @ 2007-03-03 03:14:31pm

Liked that last one. Considering that cleverness is semi-part of my life philosophy... rofl.

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2007.02.27

(delight and glee) laeren (at) tehintarnets (dot com) is now mine! Hooray for knowing geeks!

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2007.02.26

I figure I don't often do "linky" posts, and I might as well do one for once.

(giggling) I found a link tonight to YouTube's store of the Japanese version of the current Mac campaign. So cute! This one's subtitled, and was the first one I found, but I think my my favorite one is the nickname one (and after hunting, I found a subtitled version for my Japanese-challenged friends). But then, then, then, in related links, I found ones from England! Highly recommended that anyone with a sense of humor like mine watch them all... particularly the pie chart one, because it's full of shenanigans. Zomg such a cute global campaign! Although I do remember also being totally entertained by the Japanese switch ads a few years ago, so maybe I'm not too surprised. Upon further digging, I found a nice little article talking about the cultural attitudes embedded in the Japanese ads versus the US ones; it's a nice little talk, and the author has a great point before he diverges into font talk: the Japanese ads are nowhere near as funny as they could be, given the Japanese market's crazy-ass sense of humor. And for extra bonus points, the author has a Hard Gay video linked at the bottom! YES! The vid posted halfway through the comments is also funny, in an entirely different way, for those with 8 minutes to kill...

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2007.02.25

Having finally caught up to the current day show, I'm now officially bummed that it's going to be ending so soon. There's a lot of good things about ending something at its zenith, rather than letting it slowly peter out into a mockery of its former self, but I'm still sad. Probably more sad that I didn't find out about Ze and his show until so late, so the experience that some people have been having for almost a year is for me compressed to a matter of weeks.

Who likes the little little duckies in the pond? I do, I do, I do!

... I just realized that I haven't been outside my house in almost 24 hours. And that it's been 27 hours since I actually vocalized with a sentient life form. I think I'm going to go walk down to the store now, just to pretend I'm a human being.

Went out with Brandon to see three fifths of his band play a wee gig at Lottie's Lounge in Columbia City (he was not in the three fifths playing). I often forget how much I like seeing live music, generally only remembering how little I like planning to see live music. So to have Brandon call me up, suggest heading out, pick me up, and generally handle every part I hate about heading out to see a band, was quite good times. The music was excellent, and hanging out afterwards with a bunch of people I didn't know was not nearly as uncomfortable as it could have been. Maybe I'll try to actually do that more often.

Huh. I managed to totally miss that it was Oscar night tonight. Normally I kind of like watching... I wonder if anyone I know recorded it?

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2007.02.24

An entertaining drunken night out on the town was had last night. Mike, his friends Marc and Pedro (whose name is not Pedro), and I did a bit o' bar hopping, getting good and sloshed. It's been a while since I've gone out and gotten right proper drunk out with friends, spending hours talking about whatever random bullshit we can think up to discuss. This activity gets more amusing the more trouble we start having with keeping our consonants and vowels in the correct order when we speak, so by the end there, there was some serious fucking amusement.

I tumbled home in a cab a bit after 2 am, woke up to pop some ibuprofen at 9 am, and stretched out of bed right as rain at half past noon. Take that, last hangover! Your doomish ways are hereby consigned to dust.

Think

2007.02.22

Worry, worry, worry. Aggie came home last night about 11:30 pm, but didn't want to actually come inside. I snorted in her general direction, and waited for her to come back in her normal hour or so. It's now 9:20 am and she hasn't come back. I left the window open all night, so it's possible she came in and left again, but that's pretty unlikely.

Even when the lady across the street was closing Aggie in at night, she was always back at home by 8:30 or so the next morning.

Am I going to be so unlucky as to lose two cats in less than six months?

Worry, worry, worry.

Oh, thank the heavens. Approximately twenty-three and a half hours after she disappeared, Aggie's found. I had just come back from walking around the neighborhood for an hour, calling and jingling my keys; I stepped inside to grab my phone and came back out to see Aggie come around the corner of the house. She's incredibly dirty, moving slowly and carefully, and has, well, all I can describe it as is a bad aspect. No obvious injuries or really tender spots, so I'm not rushing her to the vet tonight, but my mother is going to take her to get checked out tomorrow morning.

I'm so relieved.

Think

2007.02.21

Brandon and I hung out tonight, going on another what-I-hope-might-become-customary walk around Greenlake and then talking over alcohols at the Ale House. Man oh man, is the "dark and dry cider" they have on tap there good: I drink that stuff down like water. We had a good long talk about relationships and then got on an extensive discussion about religion. Neither of us are religious, but we have some very stark and fundamental differences in our attitude towards religion that color a surprising range of our attitudes in life. It was fascinating.

In the end, the core difference between us seems to be that he thinks that religion is intrinsically evil whereas I think that evil people are pretty much equally likely to be religious as not. It's a difference of opinion on causality, really. I was particularly fascinated by this difference of opinion on evil people: Brandon finds non-religious evil people easy to dismiss, whereas religious evil people are, in his framework, much worse than non-religious evil people, because they are justifying their evil through a bogus external authority ("I hate gays because I think God tells me to"). I, on the other hand, think that non-religious people are worse, because they have defined their own moral center and chosen an evil path of their own free will ("I hate gays, not because anyone, including God, tells me to, but because I genuinely believe out of my core that they are deserving of my hate"), whereas religiously-"justified" evil people, in my mind, still have a chance to "come to their senses" and exercise their own free will to be good; those people may choose to exercise their free will in the evil direction, but they may not... at least there's a chance.

I did conceed that the system of organized religion is set up in such a way as to make abuse of religious authority entirely too easy, but I still contend that it's the intent of people that guides whether religious action is directed towards good or not. I guess I'm just very much of the "guns don't kill people, people do" mentality, where "guns" in this case is replaced with "religion." Even if I decided it wasn't for me, I grew up with too many examples of "good" religion to buy into the idea that it's intrinsically poop.

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2007.02.20

Guh. I was going to cook tonight, but even that small effort would be far too much. It's pretty sad when the thought of a stir-fry exhausts you. Two nights in a row of not nearly enough sleep, followed by a day of multiple two hour meetings... I'm beyond beat.

Think

2007.02.19

What a gloriously nerdy evening! Just as we were finishing some good old fashioned low level D&D (I shot-sploded a bunch of orcs! Then I got stabby-stabbied and I died! Thank god we have a healer for once!), Jeff got a call from a friend with a hot tip about a store that actually had Wiis available. As it turns out, I'm preternaturally good at Wii sports, or at least at Wii sports that I suck at in real life. I bowled a 193! That's at least three times my best actual bowling score ever.

Nothin' like a night like that to cheer a girl up.

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2007.02.18

Spent much of the day bored and just as restless as yesterday; even a walk over to the Ale House didn't do anything to straighten me out. But I spent the evening hanging out with Brandon, walking around Greenlake, and seeing Patrick and Craig, and I feel so much better! It's... as if I had a social life! Hah. Really, I think it was mostly the walking around Greenlake. I don't move my body enough.

...

And so what do I do but try to go to sleep, stare at the walls for thirty minutes, and then burst into tears? I've been crying these same useless tears for years now. Gods damn it and a half that there's not a scalpel for the soul; either that or some sort of beating stick to whack emotion in where it doesn't exist. I hate having no control, while simultaneously I know that I wouldn't be happy if I controlled things, either. Which brings us back to the scalpel.

And here I was, doing so well this week. Fuck.

Think

2007.02.17

I'm restless. All day I've wanted to do something, but I've had no idea what that something might be, and thus I've done nothing. I went to see Children of Men with Jeff and Seth (dystopian!), and spent a lot of quality time cuddling with Aggie (unusual!), and 10 hours after I woke up, I'm still feeling as itchy and restless as when I first woke up.

Maybe I should go somewhere where I can walk tomorrow, even if the weather's not nice.

Think

2007.02.15

This morning, in the shower, I spotted a lovely bubble. It floated lazily up towards the ceiling, eddying around in slight air currents, shimmering beautifully. I tipped up my head to watch it disappear into the fuzzy world of not-wearing-glasses, and smiled as it faded into obscurity.

And then it popped and the shampoo fell directly into my left eye.

OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

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2007.02.14

Dear self, the next time that you decide to make a very time intensive, even if delicious, dinner, please decide to do so before you're driving home at 8:30 pm. I'm lucky to be eating before midnight. Thank you.

But dizamn is homemade mac and cheese yummy.

Think

2007.02.13

My cartilage piercing appears to have decided to celebrate its almost-one-year anniversary by getting mildly infected and sore for the first time. How nice of it.

In other almost-a-year news, I learned today that I've missed out on the show for the entire last year. I am once again chagrined at my blindness to wide areas of awesomeness on the internet.

Think

2007.02.12

So Jeff and I dissolved our romantic item-ness yesterday, in the calmest, most drama-free, and all around pleasant way possible. Calling it a "breakup" just doesn't even seem appropriate, as that word has so many jagged edges and so much pain associated with it. What do you call it when you have a little talk, agree to not see each other romantically anymore, grab a beer, watch a movie happily together, then hug each other goodnight? When you exchange things the next night because you're hanging out together and watching TV anyway? I call it pretty awesome, and I'm so very pleased and proud to have him as my best bud. Here's to many more years of friendship to tack on to our current seven or so.

I handled my yearly full reading of The Stranger's valentines tonight. Gag-inducing nicknames were rampant this year, but my favorites were the valentines to the internet and to PBR. Spotted three where I think I know the players this year, up from my average uh... zero. Heh.

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2007.02.11

What an absolutely surreal day. A fun game, a delicious dinner, a pleasant breakup, an interesting movie, a hug goodnight.

Well, well, well.

Maybe I'll um... watch some Lost?

Think

2007.02.09

Well. Today was about the least productive day I think I have had in... possibly over a year. Way to go, me!

Think

2007.02.08

Some months ago, I put The Sopranos in my Netflix queue. I queued it up not because I had a true desire to watch the show, but out of a desire to observe it as a cultural event, to watch the show that seems to have been the tipping point for televised dramas becoming watchable. I had low expectations, figuring that it must have been just good enough to be proof of concept and pave the way for later shows that I love dearly.

Holy. Fucking. Crap.

I'll be damned if the 13 episodes blown through in the last week or so aren't some of the greatest television I have ever watched.

Think

2007.02.07

Convenient, that I had a headmeat appointment already scheduled for this morning. The mysteries of excellent timing!

I'm all sorts of emotionally wrung out, and tense about the future, but my waist is small and my curves are kickin'... what can I say, I've had Sir Mix-a-lot in my head for like a week straight, and I have to find humor in that.

Think

2007.02.04

I'm quite proud of myself today. I vacuumed my entire house (so it's a small house... still), did a good bit of bathroom cleaning, got all of my laundry done, and best of all, made myself a fanfuckingtastic dinner. I've been surrounded by boys who won't eat tomatoes for so long that I've never made a particular recipe that's been begging to be made... until now. Mama surprised me by stocking my house with a good bit of food while I was away, including a lovely pint of grape tomatoes that were turned into a most, most, most delicious pasta accompaniment this evening, involving roasting them with garlic, shallots, and balsamic vinegar. I'm in tastebud heaven hours later.

Ahhhhhhh.

Think

2007.02.02

(giggle) Seeing as all of Julia's reports are women, we decided to do something ultra girly for a morale event. Pedicures (2 of us) and manicures (2 of us) 4tw! I decided to go with some classic hooker toes, awwww yeah. The color was named "I'm not really a waitress," for god's sake.

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2007.02.01

I'm still planning on pushing out URLs to all my sites, but with the whole trip thing, I've been lax. I guess I'll push out a big ol' list tomorrow! Tonight, I'm too busy being sleepy after kicking back with a beer in my chair.

Ah, my chair. Many many years ago, I rescued an armchair from going to the dump when Joy moved and watned to get rid of it. Its upholstery was in sad, sad shape, but it was comfy as fuck and I figured that I'd get around to getting it reupholstered someday. That day was sometime in the last couple months, as I asked my parents to do it for my birthday, and it was delivered to my house in absolutely wonderful condition yesterday. It's a shame my living room hasn't the capacity for it, because it's absolutely made to be a TV-watching chair... but hell, I'm happy with it my office for reading.

So... comfy...

Excellent.

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