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

2006.11.26

How many hours in a row can one watch episodes of a television show, really? The answer is many, many. Currently captured by Rome, but it was Lost the other day, and so many other shows before that. I used to read, but then TV had to go and get good after many years of suckitude. Who would have predicted? I'm sure it's cyclic, though. Another year or two and I'll be back to habitually blowing through novels rather than saving it for vacations' luxury.

Think

2006.11.24

There is nothing in world more delicious to me than my family's Thanksgiving dinner. Honed to the essentials (turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, and gravy), its simplicity is its secret.

Also my doom, really. So full!

Think

2006.11.23

Thanksgiving Mark I accomplished. Jeff, Seth, Kyle, and I had a lovely dinner of potatoes and asparagus and grilled sausage, pre-work for the family dinner tomorrow night. All in all, it was a lovely day until a misstep in a computer game put me in a foul mood. Grumble. But what girl can't be wooed back into cheerfulness by Christian Bale, Michael Caine, and the most badass Batmobile ever put to screen?

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Christian Bale.

Mmmmmmmmmmm. Batmotank.

Think

2006.11.22

The insomnia continues most distressingly. I've noticed memory problems this week far out of whack with what I'd call everyday forgetfulness... I think my brain isn't getting near the time and attention it needs.

What if all the king's horses and all the king's men can't put it back together again? Think

2006.11.21

I madly wish that I were back in my comfortable and sensible *nix world, but I am also full of glee at getting to do Web work again.

Cue the confetti!

Well, actually, maybe put a hold on the confetti until I clear up this insomnia problem. I haven't been able to get to sleep before around 2 or 3 am for the last week. It's just really not helpful for anything.

Think

2006.11.19

First pedicure in quite a little while obtained. The concept was good, but execution was a bit sloppy. That and the lack of parking at my one needed errand today put me in a bit of a sour mood. So I went and got a new cell phone and provider. Duh.

Verizon's been pissing me off lately, and the lack of any phone models I wanted, when my current phone (from 2003) is now completely borked, pushed me over the edge. That and the sweet talking of the Sprint dude at Best Buy, and his offers of crazy discounts because I work for the man known as Bill. So now I've got a stylin' black cell phone to complete my ninja nerd girl set! Sleek black phone, sleek black DS, and sleek black iPod... the only thing that spoils it is my camera, which is sleek and silver, but I'll take it. And we'll see how I feel about Sprint over the next month, as their cancellation policy is quite nice should they piss me off as Verizon has.

Several hours later, I am sobbing my eyes out. I am shaking, I am so livid. I have found who has been keeping Aggie in, and it's exactly who I thought it was. I walked over there, at about half past midnight, to put a note on their door asking them to, if they had been, please not keep her in over night. When I walked up to the house, Aggie popped up in the window, meowing like crazy. I knocked, and a woman opened the door. All innocent, she asks, "oh, is this sweetie yours? I was going to put her back outside in an hour or so... you know she stays at 4 or 5 houses around here, and I get so worried because she crosses 35th..."

I asked where Aggie's collar was.

"Oh, it's right in the kitchen," the woman says, going to get it. "It was too tight, so I took it off. I was going to put it back on, but I couldn't figure out how to loosen it."

Item the first. Bullshit this woman was going to put her outside "in an hour or so." Completely consistently, if Aggie's out past about midnight, she doesn't show up until morning. I'm a night owl, I know. Item the second. Bullshit she stays at multiple houses. This woman's house stank like cigarettes. Whenever Aggie is out overlong, she always reeks of cigarettes. There has not been one time that she has been out overnight in the last two months where she has not come back smelling like that exact same brand of smokes. Item the third. The way to solve being worried about someone else's cat crossing a street is not, I repeat, NOT, you fucking ethical retard, keeping that cat for yourself. If you're incredibly motivated about it, contact the owner. There's a phone number on that fucking collar for a goddamn reason. Item the fourth. If you are concerned about the tightness of a cat's collar (Aggie's is not normally too tight, but it had gotten pulled somehow since I let her out around noon), and you can't adjust it properly, the solution is not to take the fucking collar off. The solution is to contact the owner (again, there's a phone number on the cat's collar FOR A REASON) and alert them to the problem. I have no proof that she wasn't actually intending to put the collar back on, but given items first through third, I consider it very likely that she had no such intention.

Now, of course, I'm terrible at being harsh with people, so all I found myself doing was reiterating how worried I was when Aggie is out all night, and how I spend time every time looking for her all around the neighborhood. It was not until I got back across the street and into my house, Aggie in my arms, that I burst into angry tears. All I can hope is that if it happens again, I can get myself to make it clear that she damn well better call me to come pick Aggie up rather than keep her in. SHE'S MY CAT.

Think

2006.11.17

Omg. Oh my god oh my god.

James Bond.

SQUEEEEEEEE!

Think

2006.11.16

Predictably, after a day like yesterday, today kind of sucked other than getting email from Mark. And that's really all I'll say on the matter... 11/16, you are dead to me.

Think

2006.11.15

Oh, my, I am up entirely too late. When did the time fly away?

I was one of 12 people recognized today by very (very) high-up management for internal awesomeness by peer nomination:

These are people who obsessively self-hosted, ran stress and filed/fixed bugs. These are people who went out of their way to help colleagues succeed. These are people who came up with innovative solutions to customer and internal engineering challenges.

My reaction to it is mixed. On the one hand, it's not like way-high-up people actually know me any more from Adam than they did yesterday, and given where I fall in the group, I've joked most of the day that 2 nominations were likely enough to secure me a slot. On the other hand, there are some distinctly cool things about this:

  • Getting widely called out (at least a thousand people at least got that mail today) for rocking is always a good ego boost
  • Even if only two nominations got me in there, that's still two people who thought I'm awesome enough to take the time to nominate me: ego boost #2
  • I was the only person from any international team recognized
  • I was the only girl recognized (the Fool's reaction: "fuck yes!!! you show those macho nerds what what!")

And so I think I'll mark this one down as a definite win for the day.

My deployment still isn't working, but I did get to do actual international-web-devvy stuff anyway, which made me so happy I did a little dance in my office (after everyone else had gone home, so it doesn't really count, but still). I figured out a few bugs in minutes that had been stumpers for the team for quite a while, and got, for the first time since my title changed, to actually feel like an engineer. Joy! Win #2, logged in the book.

Micah has been trying all night to fit into the Aggiebox. He's not really succeeding (he spills over the edges), but it's caused Aggie to come curl up on the couch with me. Win #3 for the day.

So yeah. Good day. Hot damn, was I overdue for one!

Think

2006.11.11

Aggie's been getting all the photographic love lately. So it's Micah's turn tonight. Other than that, I offer the following roundup. RTM party: fine. Hanging out afterwards with Mike and Jeff: fun. Shopping for TVs today: fun. Playing games at my parents' house all evening: dark horse "fun" ranking. Who would have thought? So apparently it's been a decent weekend so far.

Think

2006.11.09

Top ten reasons I absolutely despise Fergilicous, the song I have decided rates my vote of absolutely worst song ever:

  1. Fergie is a shitty rapper.
  2. Fergilicious is an idiotic made up word. If you're going to make up words, make up cool ones.
  3. "Promiscuous" does not rhyme with "delicious." Or "suspicious." Or "Fergilicious."
  4. The alternating Spanish-English countdown "four, tres, two, uno" repeated through the song makes no sense in the overall context of the song and sounds completely ridiculous.
  5. I have never wanted to hear about anything less, nor heard a stupider lyric, than Fergie being "up in the gym, just working on [her] fitness."
  6. The way she says "check it out!" midway through the song makes me want to put a pencil through my ears. And then through my eyes and my temple, just for good measure.
  7. The one musically good segment about halfway through (right after "check it out!" when the song completely swaps style for a verse) just throws the rest of its terribleness into sharper relief, intensifying the suck.
  8. "Tasty" is not, repeat, not, spelled T-A-S-T-E-Y.
  9. It makes me hate it so much that it ends up stuck in my head for hours in a feedback loop of awful.
  10. It's driven me to create a top-ten list, something I hate doing.

It really brings hatred of a song to an entirely new level.

Think

2006.11.07

Ooooh, Jen ANGRY. A little while back, I noticed that after a long night out, Aggie smelled like cigarette smoke. It was a joke at the time, that she was cheating on me with a smoker... but after another night where she utterly disappeared in the late evening and showed up immediately at 8:30 am, reeking of cigarette smoke again, I think it's pretty obvious that someone else has been keeping my cat in.

(seethe, seethe)

Aggie slipped her collar long ago, and I'd let it slide, but it's obviously time to get her a new one. I also saw her meowing around a house across the street the other day, so I'm going to go over tonight to see if it's them (and bitch them out if it is). When I was in high school, my childhood cat, Kitty B., was lured away from my family in much the same way, and I will not have it again.

I just really hope that I don't have to turn her into an indoor-only cat, because she's become a real brat about not adamantly not using the litterbox.

New collar obtained, both cats dosed with flea meds, and they'll stay inside for the afternoon. I'm still boiling mad, but I guess, while I can blame whoever has been keeping Aggie, I can at least understand it a little bit. Wouldn't you want to keep this cutie, too?

Think

2006.11.06

Stuck at home sick today with nothing to do, I decided to finally, finally, unpack the remaining boxes in the office, and organize my books on my shelves. A mundane-seeming task, perhaps, but one that made me feel incredibly better. Not to mention the chance to update the database always makes me smile.

Think

2006.11.06

The mysterious rise and fall of Micah's treasure: a couple weeks ago, I looked out the kitchen windows to see Micah, listing precariously on top of the fence around the garbage cans, obviously having trouble staying upright and just as obviously struggling with... something. I looked away for a moment and soon heard a thunk as he made it to the ground (he's a big boy!). I also heard a jingle. What? Looking back out, I burst into giggles as I saw that Micah was dragging something brightly colored and jangly into the backyard, between his legs, lion-dragging-a-kill style. He was very proud of himself. I walked out to get a better look, and what did I find but that he had brought home a cat toy, a yellow plastic wand with a long line connected to a feathery bit and a bell. Where did he get it? I have no idea! So far as I know, he looted it from a trash can or outright stole it from someone else's yard. He's always loved jangly toys, but I won't let him have them, as they drive me nuts... inside the house. His resourcefulness is to be commended, and I couldn't stop giggling as I got him to give it to me and propped it in the fence so that it'd dangle right at cat-playing height. He's been entranced with it; whenever it's been good weather and he's been outside, you can hear the faint jingle jingle of him playing with it, or can look outside to see him flopped down right beneath it. Today, however, it's been ucky and he's been keeping my home-sick self company inside. I heard a faint jangle earlier, and presumed it to be the wind... but when I just went out hunting for Aggie, I found that the bell and feathery bit have disappeared from the end of the line.

My theory is that he did steal it from another cat's yard, and that that cat finally found it and took its revenge.

Think

2006.11.05

Fret fret fret fret.

Think

2006.11.04

Despite frequent reminders, I find it hard to believe that not everyone experiences music the way I do. My reactions are visceral: the remix of When We Were Young by The Killers and the Olympic fanfare both bring tears to my eyes; the Star Wars theme, the Irish music playing over Boston in Boondock Saints, and No Leaf Clover by Metallica and the San Francisco Symphony all cascade prickles down my back; Lucretia MacEvil by Blood, Sweat and Tears and You Get What You Give by The New Radicals alike circle my heart and shoot happiness up along my jawline.

I'm no musician, or discriminating sophisticate. I listen to rock and electronica, hiphop and country, classical and bhangra, popular artists and obscure ones, ones everybody likes and ones everybody thinks are crap, for there's no telling where I will find the next song that will wrench my body and my emotions.

I can still feel the day, some fifteen years ago, that my sixth grade music class's teacher had us lay our heads down on our desks and listen to Ravel's Bolero in silence. Tears streamed down my face and puddled under my cheek as something in my chest soared.

How can some people not feel it?

Think

2006.11.02

I figured I'd finally roll over the page. I've been laxy! Which isn't a word, but, well, you know what I mean.

Aggie is demanding to be let out. I tried explaining to her that it's pouring outside, but she's having none of it. A bit ago, her meow got louder and strangely accompanied by a metallic rattle; I turned to see her dangling an inch above the ground, a claw stuck in a part of the doorknob that I never knew existed. Kitty lockpicking attempt! She was gracious about not squirming as I disengaged her, and promptly tried to pretend it had never happened... until just a minute ago when what do I hear but...

... rattle ... rattle rattle ...

(shaking head) If she actually does get the door open someday, I will say, "I called it."

Think