No head time could be spared this weekend to figure out what to do about site hosting, so I'm probably going to go dark for a bit. Possibly until next weekend, or the weekend after, unless someone has some quick help to offer. So sad!
(warning: particularly old content) I don't ask for it to make sense 
Every time I think maybe Coulton tix are just slightly expensive, do I really need to see him again... Mr. Fancy Pants pulls me back in. I swear to god, watching that live is worth the price of admission alone every damn time. And of course there's Paul and Storm hilarity, and songs I love to sing along to, and songs other people in the crowd love to sing along to, and covers that make me laugh, and I come out not being able to wait until the next time he comes to town.
Pants.
In other, extremely unfortunate news, my site hosting is going away basically immediately (by Monday). I'm very much not the one most affected in this situation, but that's going to be my weekend: pulling down DB backups and figuring out where to go. At least my URL won't have to change anymore! So that's one hassle off the mind.
Sigh. I'm still there, never fear. I'm beloved, no doubt. But times like the last year... man. How much does being beloved really count, against everything else?
/me dances gleefully around the shiny new telescope in her campsite
KoL thing. I wouldn't expect you to understand. Only six upgrades to go!
My precioussss...!
Ugh. Tomorrow, I have to get up in the 6 o'clock range. That's approximately 4 hours before what I consider a civilized time to wake up, but does the world revolve around me? Noooooo.
Friday and Saturday are likely to continue being dead zones, and I think I'm just going to choose to be okay with that. The weekend was far busier than I'd like it to be, and I spent pretty much all the time that wasn't busy sleeping (if only every day could involve a two hour afternoon nap), with end result that I feel like I didn't get much of a weekend at all. Sigh. Most frustrating of all, the new framed photograph I picked up today won't be hung where I wanted it; there's some sort of adamantium wall (or perhaps just a duct) thwarting me. So now I've got some spackled holes that need to be sanded and painted, and no picture on the wall. Stupid, stupid wall. On the other hand, we had carnitas at Rositas last night, so really, how bad can anything truly be?
In other news, I have a credit card, for essentially the first time ever (the $500 limit one I had for the 2 years I was doing Japan travel was closed long ago, and never really counted in the first place). I'm utterly weirded out about it.
Today was a three-rant day at work. That's only counting the full fledged raging rants, of course; there were far more associated mini rants. Pho with Zach was basically the only good part of my day until I got home around 9:45, and a very good part it was, but wow. I'm completely worn and wrung out.
I had an extraordinary moment this evening: I had to learn something novel that truly felt like international Web development. It was a small thing, to be sure, but I've been at my job for nearly four years now, and have worked as an engineer in the online team for about three, and for that entire time, I've basically not had to stretch my Web dev skills and reach for something new. I've learned plenty in other realms, of course, but my raw Web dev prowess was well established long before I joined Microsoft (ego: rawr!) and nothing I've done at work, across all my languages and sites, has forced me to investigate truly new concepts. It made my day.
I feel like I found the shiniest pretties penny in the world, right there in my search results.
Tonight, we finally had Thanksgiving. The last few years it's always been somewhat delayed; with Bryce doing stuff with Jenya's family, and me going to Colorado for the long weekend, we've chosen to do family Thanksgiving a week or two after the actual holiday. This time, however, Bryce wanted to wait until New Years, a plan that was disrupted by Mama being in the hospital. Better late than never! Family stuffing must not be denied.
Nothing against the turkey, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, pea salad, and garlic bread, but moral imperative and all that. Mmmmmm Nana's stuffing.
I <3 Man v Food on the Travel Channel. If only he'd do shows in places I'm likely to actually go. although I'd seriously consider going to Chicago just for that dipped sandwich...
But who am I kidding: it's not just about the food. I have a raging crush on Adam Richman. Adorable, snarky, and loves food... my kind of man. For serious, I'm to the point of watching re-runs just to drool at both him and the ridiculous (awesome) food he's going for; lucky for me, Jeff likes the show as well. SCORE!
This weekend, we cooked a brisket, long and slow in the oven. Five hours at 250 degrees does some lovely things to a cut of meat, particularly when it's hanging out with some onions and jalapenos in a bath of vinegar, soy sauce, coffee, liquid smoke, and worcestershire sauce. I was worried that it was going to taste too... "sharp," and in truth it did, a bit. But with a vinegar-y barbecue sauce it tasted like a dream, particularly as leftover sandwich fixins'. A+, will cook again (although possibly without the soy sauce and less liquid smoke). But the best part was being able to take some over to Mama this evening; she's doing better every day, and was well enough tonight to actually eat more than a couple bites of dinner. Reward++. Even though she likes to have brisket with a side of dill pickles. Ew!
XBox 360 obsession of the night: Boogie Bunnies. I anticipated it being terrible, when I grabbed it along with several other puzzle games to try. It is instead the most adorable squee-inducing game I have seen in a long time, and super fun to play. Plus a good co-op mode! Jeff's and my hands are a little tired after an hour long run to level 17 or so. Sometimes, the bunnies sound like Jawas. HEE.
Pretty much what I needed after what was otherwise a pretty awful and depressing day.
XBox 360 obsession of the night: Boogie Bunnies. I anticipated it being terrible, when I grabbed it along with several other puzzle games to try. It is instead the most adorable squee-inducing game I have seen in a long time, and super fun to play. Plus a good co-op mode! Jeff's and my hands are a little tired after an hour long run to level 17 or so. Sometimes, the bunnies sound like Jawas. HEE.
Pretty much what I needed after what was otherwise a pretty awful and depressing day.
I have been taking some time off. The most time off, in fact, ever, in my nearly ten years of having /tht/ around. On the one hand, it seems a shame to sacrifice a decade of a habit, but on the other, if I'm not finding it in myself to compose something worth reading, why bother? After ten years of this business, I'll freely admit that much of what has been committed to bits has been nothing more than a ping, a beep on a heart monitor. "I'm alive! And tired. And something about toast."
The last several nights of my most recent patch of insomnia, I have gerbil wheeled in my head different ways to start writing again. Different ways to think about having a site. I crested a decade of the site at all, back in September, and am three months off of ten years of /tht/, after all. For a long time it was a reassuring constant, something that I could cling to and say "hey, at least I've got this thing here, and I know what's up with it, and that's not going to change no matter how depressed and freaked out I get." But at some point in the last few months, reassuring constant finally shifted to stagnant albatross of the around-my-neck variety.
Part of it was getting the new laptop, in truth; I've still not gotten MYSQL set up on it, nor my tht scripts to work, in over four months. It was about month two when it occurred to me that I was feeling allergic to the whole thing. Novel. A redesign, an archiving, a something is needed; just stopping has never been appealing. I'm not good at keeping up with people, so I treasure my little insights on my friends and acquaintances, knowing what Zach made for dinner or how Colleen and Luke's vacation went or how Mickey's hedgepigs are doing. It seems unfair to not return the favor to whoever might feel the same way about my minutia. Of course, entertaining such a thought is immediately followed by a harsh snipe to myself about how no one cares about what I'm doing, so if someone is reading this and tempted to make such a snide remark, please know that I'm currently crying about it and so your work is already done.
It's not been a good half year or so. There have been good moments, of course, as there always are; perhaps if one did some sort of analysis, you'd even find that the good moments have technically outnumbered the bad. Holidays do always particularly do me in, but for example, did Christmas day really have to start off with learning that Mama, who I'd not seen since before Thanksgiving, had fallen back into a state more like she was a year ago, incoherent, in pain, not my mother? She's out tonight after a week long stint in the hospital, much recovered, but still so very fragile. Dad put it well in a status mail to the family: she feels like she missed the holidays entirely and is hunting for bits of them. I know how she feels.
It's late, and I do feel almost as if I could fall asleep, what with some of the gerbil wheel spun off into Emacs.
Snippets to spin off the worrying stress wheel: sleep schedule and /tht/ writing. Jeff. My role at work. My weight. Zach, we had a stupid internet spat that I don't even understand, and if you're reading this, we should get pho soon because I miss you and you need to taunt me about my company some (I'll try to remember to email you properly). All the excellent cooking we've done the last few weeks. All the stuff I want to try cooking over the next few weeks. The future. Massages. What if my (self-)perceived failure on my initial life schedule results in my kids and my mom never really knowing each other properly? Vacations I want to take. Concerts. Work I want to do on the house: fix the toilet, replace windows, new lighting in the living room, replace the hideous fireplace, renovate the kitchen. Christmas presents (I have a current-gen console for the first time in years! Schizoid and Zuma rock). Paying back my dad. The Photoshop/Meiryo bug I think I found today. Keep the site up with a facelift, or finally actually remove content? My new office. Mama.
Having leaned my head back on the couch and closed my eyes for a few moments of blissful nothingness, I think I've sufficiently salad-spun the mind for now. EOM.