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

2007.05.31

$600 to fix my car for emissions stuff AUGH WTF. And where's my goddamn bucket?

Normally I can't stand mashups. They're pretty much complete travesties of "music" so far as I'm concerned. Except for the DJ Mei Lwun mashup of Lynrd Skynrd's "Sweet Home Alabama" and Nelly's "Country Grammar." It's the best fucking thing since sliced bread, and I just thought you should know.

Think

2007.05.30

Now, normally I, like most people, essentially try to pretend that the bathroom does not play a central role in my life. But every now and then, a bathroom story must be put into print.

Tonight, while minding my own fucking bidness, I suddenly felt a tickle on the side of my thigh. A gigantic freaking spider had scaled the toilet pedestal and was cavorting up towards my hip.

(SHRIEK)

Think

2007.05.29

How irritating. The exact same bot posting spam to two random /tht/ entries, that was blocked for three months through disallowing the posting of any comment with the string '[url]' in it, returned with a vengeance this week, spamming plaintext URLs into the same two entries. Internet, you continue to baffle the crap out of me. Comments with the string 'http' are now similarly disallowed. Anyone posting comments should be observant enough to read the disclaimers I have provided. If you can't follow instructions, you can't post. So there.

Think   3 Thoughts

2007.05.27

Memory is such a fickle beast. It has gently erased some traumatic moments, which is all well and good, but it's also dusted away thousands of instants that I would have liked to keep ahold of, while leaving the most humiliating experiences to replay constantly. Thanks a lot, brain.

And now for something completely different.

We went to see the third installment of Pirates of the Caribbean this afternoon (followed, it should be noted, by danger dogs, white russians, The Big Lebowski, and the first episode of The Lost Room miniseries... it was an epic day). My opinion on the combination of the second and the third movies has crystallized into a mad desire for the internets to deliver me the Johnny Depp remix. Some of the stunts could be thrown in, as well, and a special effect here or there, but really, the rule seems to be that if Jack Sparrow is in the scene, or in close proximity to it, I was entertained. And if not... I was really just waiting for Jack to come back.

And now for something completely different.

I was inspired today to assemble a list of my top 10 favorite albums, defined less as collections of tracks that I enjoy (although those rare albums where I love every song were definitely in the running) and more as overall experiences that I love to repeat. I make no excuses, although several entries may incite laughter and / or mockery; I originally wrote a bit of explanatory commentary but removed it because I was really just trying to sneak in more names.

They are presented in alphabetical order, because I'm really not sure how I'd actually rank them.

  • Amon Tobin: Bricolage
  • BT: Movement in Still Live
  • Crash Test Dummies: God Shuffled His Feet
  • Death In Vegas: Dead Elvis
  • Dave Matthews Band: Crash
  • David Bowie: Black Tie White Noise
  • Days of the New: Days of the New (Yellow)
  • Future Sound of London: Accelerator
  • Pearl Jam: Ten
  • Type O Negative: October Rust

Cutting down to 10 was surprisingly fucking difficult. My full list of favorite albums in this regard numbers more in the multiple dozens.

Funny that so many are in the top part of the alphabet, both artist and album name. I'd find it more curious had they not been pretty much balanced out by the ones that were written in and then eliminated. Coincidences ftw.

Think

2007.05.26

Happy birthday to my dear Fool, as always. You're now also closer to thirty than you are to twenty. HAH!

Aggie very much wants to crawl up on my chest, but she won't admit it. Cats can be so neurotic sometimes. All the time. Whatever. It's really frigging late and I'm loopy.

Think

2007.05.24

Zomg shleepy. That I'm not going to work tomorrow tricked me into staying up an hour past my recent bedtime, despite the fact that I'm due at an appointment downtown tomorrow morning around the time I often show up for work anyway. Curses, FOILED!!

I love that Micah and I have cemented a steady ritual over the last few months of us being the only occupant of my bed (albeit the seeds were laid when he was a kitten, and sprouted into the recognizable precursor of the current form about six months ago). While I dink around getting ready for bed, he flops on the end of the bed for pre-sleep nappage; when I crawl in and start my nightly read, he lets me alone for about ten minutes before starting to push up in my face. Around the twenty minute mark, when I turn off my light, he starts purring frantically and cuddling into my chin. After about ten minutes (although sometimes much longer), he settles down into the crook of my arm, head on my chest, and dozes off (that's usually about when I start actually starting to drift as well). Between about ten and thirty minutes later, he wakes up, mrrfs into my chin, and heads back down to the bottom of the bed, leaving me in peace to sleep the rest of the night.

Terrible insomniac that I am, it's a nigh guarantee that I don't fall asleep for at the very least half an hour after I turn off the light. Clockwork-regular cuddling with one of my cats is a much more pleasant way to spend that dead time than staring at the ceiling, let me tell you what what.

Think   1 Thought

Jojo @ 2007-05-27 06:41:08am

My cat sleeps right at my chin also. it feels sooo nice....but only on HIS terms...never when I want to cuddle,very independant.

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2007.05.22

I need to get better about ensuring that scp actually has accepted my password. Many are the days when, a full night later, I come back to my terminal and see Permission denied, please try again and a blinking cursor. Lord knows I don't run publishing BVTs. See how I worked in the work jargon? Smooth. Real smooth.

Think

2007.05.21

Squeal! What an excellent night of geekery. No games were played, because we were all too somnolent following a grillerific orgy of hot links, potatoes, and corn, but who cares? For Kyle found me the Transformers trailer, Seth dug up Night Watch, and the Heroes season finale rounded us out. I lost count of how many times tonight I did a little couch dance, or outright squealed in delight.

I'm interested in my immediate reaction to Night Watch; I thought: "I love this movie, because it's the most book-like movie I've seen in a while." But then I couldn't figure out why I thought it. It shall be my homework to figure out why.

Think

2007.05.20

Every now and then, a bit of planning brings things together in perfect small ways. Fresh basil there to be picked for dinner, Carnivale to gently creep me out after weeks of the melodrama on Six Feet Under making me sniffle. And then there's the completely unexpected, like Micah playfully high-fiving me from the cat tree for a good minute, claws carefully sheathed, or the window snail waking up after its month-long nap, unfurling, and slithering away over the course of an engrossing ten minutes. Today was a good day.

Think

2007.05.19

I decided today that in the event of a zombie attack, I'm totally hosed. Also, in my old age, I've gotten too damn weenie to watch jumpy scary movies. There were multiple times during 28 Weeks Later that I had to close my eyes, including an entire frigging scene at one point. Watching them at home with friends is one thing, because I can invoke the chatter clause and tone down my jumpiness through witty repartee, and I dunno, maybe if I had a boy to grab onto it wouldn't be too bad in a theater. Maybe.

(shudder)

Stupid jumpy "BOO!" scary movies. I'm fine with gore and overall fear, but the shrieking leap into frame does me every time. I can try to blame the whole thing on old age, but it's really just the complete eye-shutting that's new; just ask poor Amelia's hand how it felt after we watched Jurassic Park those many years ago. Stupid raptors.

Think

2007.05.18

The moon was a blood-red sliver as I drove home tonight, sharp enough to prick your finger.

I was originally determined to follow that sentence with something well-written, but because I'm ragingly sleepy, I'll leave it at this: I've never seen a moon like that in life; it was a moment of unique, simple beauty, which I am profoundly grateful to have glimpsed.

Think

2007.05.16

Mission Going To Bed Between Midnight and One AM continues now. E-o-frickin'-M.

Think

2007.05.15

I theoretically learned a lesson this morning, the lesson that no matter how dead I feel when the alarm goes off, I can be alert and moving after about ten minutes, and have a good morning and a good day. I suspect that the length of time that this lesson will stay in my head is rougly related to how long it is from now that my alarm will go off again.

Stupid alarm.

Vacation was planned last night, YAAAAAAY. Seth, Jeff, and I are going down to Seaside, Oregon, for the second week of June. A variety of other friends may likely join us in various stints. I'm planning on sleeping, reading, eating, and walking on the beach. It shall be EXCELLENT.

Think   1 Thought

2007.05.13

My mother's day exhausted the crap out of me. It was good, and I got a lot of gardenwork completed (tomatoes are in, and a variety of herbs potted, yay!) in the in-between times, but now I take my bratty-ass cat and go to bed.

Think

2007.05.12

I finally did it. Eight months after The Great Hard Drive Annihilation of 2006, I finally bit the bullet and resync'd my iPod. Only about half of my CDs have been re-ripped, and all the material that was on Miei is back to being unrated, but I couldn't wait any longer. I've been dying to listen to some of my newer music in my car or when gardening, and it hit the breaking point when I finally found a long-sought pair of songs (The Cat Empire's "Hello" and Get Set Go's "I Hate Everyone"). I drove up to Bothell (for sushi with Jeff and Seth, yay!) and back today with new music blaring and gosh darnit, it made me ridiculously happy. I sang along at the top of my lungs to "What Would Brian Boitano Do" and Gwen Stefani's "Sweet Escape" (yet again proving the Weezer "Island in the Sun" rule that if there's someone hooting in a song, I'll disproportionally love it); I driver-seat danced to remixes of Amy Winehouse's "Rehab," The Killer's "Read my Mind," and Keane's "Is It Any Wonder." But perhaps most entertaining, I discovered that it's not humanly possible to drive to A3's "Woke Up This Morning" without feeling like a total badass.

Makes me want to chomp a cigar just thinking about it.

Think   2 Thoughts

2007.05.11

Ah, Wikipedia. Why must you know everything, in such an addictive, clickable format? I've spent tonight reading about recreational mathematics, Alan Turing, the origin of the term "doomsday," and the Black Death, and approximately six zillion steps in between. Now all I need is to read about the Hanging Gardens of Babylon...

Think   2 Thoughts

2007.05.10

I'm experimenting with going to bed "early," as in, between midnight and one am. It's seeming to work reasonably well. You know, after two days of it. Totally indicates future success, right? Here's hoping.

Really nothing else to report. I like toast!

Think   1 Thought

2007.05.07

New favorite candy: chocolate-covered altoids. They're like nothing so much as crunchy Junior Mints of heavenly deliciousness. I won't buy them often, because I appear to blow through a tin like a steam train... but wowee zowie. First of the non-traditional (classic peppermint all the way!) versions to get a thumbs up. Makers of altoids, I salute you! While devouring delicious crunchy chocolate mints.

Think   4 Thoughts

2007.05.06

I'm not sure at what point it suddenly became almost 3 am. Last I checked, it wasn't even 1. Damnit.

And SHIT, I just checked and I forgot we've got all-day, starting at 9 am, "team building" event tomorrow. Fuck fuck fuck. I'd skip out, but I pleaded out of the last one... sigh.

Because getting 4 hours of sleep, which is about what I can get in given this situation, is always my favorite thing.

Think

2007.05.05

Hrm. Methinks I should probably place a moratorium on consuming any media with more than an ounce or two of romance. Death seems to be okay, though, particularly when there's zombies involved. I watched both Spiderman 3 and 28 Days Later today, and although while I didn't outright dislike Spidey's latest outing, I'm much happier about finally seeing "the fast zombie movie" that my departure to Japan kept me from, oh those several years ago, than I am about having attended a "movie event." It was worth matinee money, which is what I spent. Zombies were free, but I would have happily paid even Japanese ticket prices to watch them. If there'd, you know, been anyone to go with. We only have to dig into the archives of 2003 to be reminded how well the whole going-to-movies thing went when I was in Japan.

Think   1 Thought

2007.05.04

There's really very few moments related to my single life lately that have actually depressed me, but hurrying from work to take Micah to the emergency vet, pacing at vet for a couple hours, and coming home to decompress from intense pet worry, entirely by myself, definitely ranks up there. I do have three friends who I would normally try to turn to to take me out to get dinner and some alcohol to help push it all out of my brain, but all three are unavailable. So it's just me, at home by myself. I guess I should start getting used to taking a good cry and being content.

Think   2 Thoughts

2007.05.03

Back at the end of January, I claimed I was going to provide links to the full set of sites that I've been working on. Then I got really busy, and promised myself that I'd do it as soon as, rather arbitrarily, my Arabic site launched. Then Arabic got delayed. For nearly three months. Until today, after nearly all of my sites have not only gone live but gone through multiple weeks of content updates and bugfixes.

I present to you... my work.

Language Region/Market URL
Arabic Middle East http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/ar-XM/
Chinese (Simplified Script) China (People's Republic of China) http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/zh-CN/
Chinese (Traditional Script) Hong Kong http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/zh-HK/
Taiwan http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/zh-TW/
Croatian Croatia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/hr-HR/
Czech Czech Republic http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/cs-CZ/
Danish Denmark http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/da-DK/
Dutch Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg) http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/nl-BE/
Netherlands http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/nl-NL/
English Australia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-AU/
Canada http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-CA/
Hong Kong http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-HK/
India http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-IN/
Indonesia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-ID/
Ireland http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-IE/
Malaysia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-MY/
Middle East http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-XM/
New Zealand http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-NZ/
Singapore http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-SG/
South Africa http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-ZA/
United Kingdom http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-GB/
Estonian Estonia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/et-EE/
Finnish Finland http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/fi-FI/
French Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg) http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/fr-BE/
Canada http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/fr-CA/
France http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/fr-FR/
North Africa http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/fr-XF/
Switzerland http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/fr-CH/
German Austria http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/de-AT/
Germany http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/de-DE/
Switzerland http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/de-CH/
Greek Greece http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/el-GR/
Hebrew Israel http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/he-IL/
Hungarian Hungary http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/hu-HU/
Italian Italy http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/it-IT/
Japanese Japan http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/ja-JP/
Korean Korea http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/ko-KR/
Latvian Latvia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/lv-LV/
Lithuanian Lithuania http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/lt-LT/
Norwegian Norway http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/nb-NO/
Polish Poland http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/pl-PL/
Portuguese (Brazilian) Brazil http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/pt-BR/
Portuguese Portugal http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/pt-PT/
Russian Russia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/ru-RU/
Slovak Slovak Republic http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/sk-SK/
Slovenian Slovenia http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/sl-SI/
Spanish Latin America http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/es-XL/
Spain http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/es-ES/
Swedish Sweden http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/sv-SE/
Thai Thailand http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/th-TH/
Turkish Turkey http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/tr-TR/

Of particular pride are the Italian, Korean, and Spanish (Latin America) sites, as those have progressed the farthest with market customization and expanded content being live, but (wink) there's plenty more coming down the pipe. It's as if I do something with my days! Many of the standard disclaimers for a Microsoft site apply ("looks prettiest in the latest version of our browser")... but not all, as (in no small part thanks to me, my Mac, and my army of international browser usage stats!) our FF/IE6 support is pretty fantastical as long as you're running Windows, and Safari works decently. Hooray for cross-browser / cross-platform compatibility! FF on a Mac, though... who knows what's going on there. There's only so far I can take this dance.

It really is crazy to see them all listed. 35 languages, 51 marketized sites... I touch the world.

Think   2 Thoughts

2007.05.02

Sheer force of will, I said today. Was it that I think I should be able to, or that I want to?

Unfortunately, sheer force of will definitely doesn't seem to have prevented me from catching some sort of retarded spring cold.

Think