Car is still in shop for Replacement 3 of the offending parts; this time they're using OEM parts, and the second part has yet to arrive as of 3:30-ish today. So bus again. At least the BART strike is over (for now) so the SamTrans stops are not fucked like they were during the strike. (For whatever reason, the SamTrans stops that were inside BART grounds rather than adjacent were moved to be adjacent, causing general chaos and confusion and also me standing around sockless in the cold fog for an hour last night.)
We've figured out how to shave a little time off the commute. By catching the other bus instead of the one bus, we can catch the long haul a good twenty minutes into its haul, instead of at the beginning. By repeating the process in the other direction, we can ditch an hour due to the flaky connection with the late-running bus. But beware, as the earliest departure time from work is just about the right amount of time to catch the last of that bus. (However, if we've missed it entirely, we can continue to the end of the line and get the late bus. Which is hourly. And a long wait.)
Tomorrow it happens again. Tomorrow there is also the chance that I get to meet some of the more interesting, if not affable, fellows from an adjacent department, due to scheduling hilarity. It's unlikely that I'll be gravely needed, but I'll be at work anyway. Robin Sparkles and I were chatting over lunch, and the topic came up; I got to tell the tale of my introduction to the guy that she thought I was talking about. I've honed the story, it's now down to: "And then I found out how poorly the following elements combined: [off-topic] list, the phrase "with all due respect", the phrase "bite me", and the reply-all feature."
The commute is made reasonable via podcasts, which I was going to describe to somebody but the comment is surely piled under several hundred others in my inbox now, and gods know when I'm going to dig out. So:
The Nerdist: Newly subscribed, yet to listen.
Competitive Erotic Fan Fiction: ditto
Today We Learned: ditto ditto
Nerdist Writers Panel: ditto ditto ditto
How I Met Your Mother: ditto again, and I'm really looking forward to a creator-side view.
KQED: This Week in Northern California: I'm not sure this is updating. I need a better local news type podcast. Also maybe some actual weather.
NPR Programs: Wait Wait Don't Tell Me: Mostly enjoyable with some cringeworthy moments.
NPR Programs: Fresh Air: I like that the format includes both long stories and little snippets. I'm not as charmed by the way the weekend one repeats stuff I've already heard, but that can sometimes get weeded out.
NPR Topics: World Story of the Day: Informative. Short, and can be used as buffer between long-format.
MSNBC Rachel Maddow: Yay Rachel Maddow! Politics news that doesn't make me want to get stabby (well, not at Rachel, and someone else saying WHAT THE FUCK NO I MEAN WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE makes me less stabby in general).
Fandomania: Fannish type stuff. Updates weekly. Decent but I'm not super enthused.
SF Squeecast: Seanan's on it and it's awesome. Various speculative fiction type writers talking about generally fannish related things that delight them, with bonus witty banter, hilarity, and occasionally cat-related incidents like Alice trying to eat Seanan's microphone.
Slashreport: Podcast of my heart. This is the podcast that convinced me that maybe I should listen to podcasts, and then it reminded me that hey, I grew up with radio, maybe audio format was a good thing for me.
Welcome to Night Vale: Speculative fiction radio show of my heart. Clicks hard with a lot of people; doesn't click hard with some. I'm one of the ones for whom it clicked. Hard. And I fell in love instantly.
The Hidden Almanac: So
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ursulav heard descriptions of Night Vale, and got a particular mental image of how it was. Then she listened and it wasn't. Now her husband narrates The Hidden Almanac. You know those updates from
ursulav's garden? Now imagine that as filtered through the same blotter paper that Night Vale was licked off of, in compact 4-minute segments. (The updates about the historical points and especially the lives of saints requires no filtration, they just are that weird.) Includes amazing messages from the sponsors, which need listening to from the beginning. There are only sixteen episodes. That's just over an hour of listening. Start now, they're small.
