Called the BFF today. It had been a while. My phone decided to reboot itself in the middle of the call.

He did figure out the problem with my number: he'd a very old number saved as my primary number, and my current number as secondary. I'd figured it was something of the like.

He had a hilarious exchange about laundry with his mother as well. They were singing little songs at each other.

Late in the afternoon, I had a meeting scheduled for one of the guys from the helpdesk to show up at my cube to try to duplicate one of the Llama problems.

I'd thought it was just going to be the unhandled item thing (Chrome does it, Firefox does it, and neither helpdesk nor I approves of IE) but the helpdesk guy showed up with two other guys, one of whose names I recognized (because he had one of my other tickets) and one of whose I didn't (who turned out to have a third ticket of mine).

I couldn't duplicate the unhandled item thing (I wasn't expecting to), and the mass-tagging display thing didn't display as I was expecting it to. "Maybe it's because we're here," one of the guys said, and oh god, these. things. happen. yes. aaagh.

The keyboard navigation thing did actually manifest as it was supposed to -- and the helpdesk guy said the dreaded words. "How long has it been since you cleared your cache?"

( Troubleshooting. )


I stomped back in to my Overlady's office in grim triumph. "The secret," I said to her bewildered look, "is that you have to go up, before it will fail to go down."

"Somewhere out there," she replied, "a snake oil salesman is sitting up straight and thinking, 'That is the title of my next self-help book.'"


The Animaniacs' Pinky and the Brain has the "Are You Pondering what I'm Pondering?" sequence. Pinky's response generally makes no god-damned sense at all. One episode, you actually get to see Pinky's thought sequence, which is incredibly fast and vaguely random, and ... actually sort of like the inside of my own head.


"But is there such a thing as snake butter," I asked.

"I wonder where the term 'snake oil' comes from, anyway," mused my Overlady, pulling up Wikipedia.

"You can milk snakes," I mused. "And you could probably try to churn it. But you would not want to eat that butter."


My Overlady, at this point, violated one of her cardinal rules, which is: Don't Google That Shit At Work, and pulled up not one, but two, search engines in search of the phrase.

We wound up with a bunch of hits on mushrooms (which made sense after other things were explained, later) and a piece of enigmatic chopping machinery with dodgy translation* attached to it.

At this point, the fact that we had just in all seriousness googled "snake butter" wondering if anyone was either ( animal harm ) or milking snakes and attempting to churn the venom, started to catch up with us, and I started laughing like a loon.

This meant that it was time to go the hell home.


Upon arriving home, I called my BFF, as it is the customary night for such things. Between one thing and the other, my Overlady's rule about not googling random things at work (similar to her "If the answer to any question starts with 'Well, I ran into this thing on the internet...', then that question probably does not need to be answered at work" rule) came up. So did various innuendo-laden music, and Yoda, and Sesame Street.

"That reminds me," I said thoughtfully. "There exists a video on YouTube..."

"The end of that sentence is rarely anything good," my BFF observed.

Just so. Googling random things at work. "Well, I ran into this thing on the internet..." and "There exists a video on YouTube" -- all things likely to result in trouble.

At any rate, my BFF has now been introduced to that bleeped video of the Count singing about his hobby.

And life is good.


* The description "high speed snake butter" would perhaps have been more completely rendered "high speed [fruit and vegetable] chopper" -- and given that shiitake mushrooms are apparently also known as "snake butter", all now makes perfect sense.

*SHRIEK*
"What was that?!"
"Train."
*WHNGGGGGG*
"Are you sure that wasn't some science fiction sound effects or something launching?"
"Yup."

*SHRIEK*
"Isn't that the crazy train, and shouldn't you be getting on it?"
"My dear sir, I am Azzie, not Ozzy."
*WHNGGGGGG*

I dropped my car off at the mechanic last night. I got the call this afternoon -- the oil change was done, but the tech had yet again failed to make him make that sound. So I asked them to do the local shuttle service thing that they do, and took the tech around the parking lot a few times, then around the block. Nothin'. The closest it came was a steering column thunk when turned to the max (not it; I didn't even register it) and one tiny little scraping noise that I more felt than heard, and the mechanic didn't hear or feel at all.

I promised to bring him in while he was actively making the noise and do a test run right then, and started to fuck off to work, via the drive-through.

The drive through is in a stupid parking lot with stupidly placed humps and bumps. I went over one on the passenger side but not the driver side, and on the next major steering adjustment after that -- THERE WAS THE FUCKING SOUND.

I drove back to the mechanic with triumph (and french fries), but naturally all the techs were slammed. So I fucked off to work, complaining to norabombay the whole way.

The mechanics and I are on for Saturday morning, assuming trollcar is still trollin'.


Unrelated to that, my digestive system was (being) revolting, and I had no idea why. This evening? HELLO MENSTRUAL CYCLE. So that explains that.


Also unrelated, but much nicer: I took the chance of calling my BFF this evening at what would have previously been too late on a different schedule of his, and we had a pleasant hour or so of chatter while he attempted to navigate the ins and outs of baby's first MMO. (Aww.)

I often go to him for sensibility checks on things. This time I asked him how he'd make sure people stayed off the pavement while it was being resurfaced. He mentioned barriers and signs. He didn't think a date/time would be a good idea, because what if something happened that it took longer than the estimate to cure/dry/whatever? Smart man. Smart, smart man. I love him for his braaaaaains. The lolarious wrongness of scheduling things such that the entire apartment complex had to park on the street at the same time didn't hardly come up.


Tomorrow morning is work! Early! I am again the official notetaker. Hilarity will ensue.

My sleep schedule's been all "fun", but I did get to my aunt's on the 21st. We had a quiet dinner in honor of the longest night & return of the sun. She was wiped out due to lack of sleep (Deacon, the elderly lab, hasn't been sleeping well at night, and passing along the favor), and I have been ailing for something.

Last night was a dw_news entry, which was all sorts of lovely. The comments are full of delight and happiness. Unfortunately, my internet was blipping in and out intermittently all day. amberfox called, which was fun.

This morning, the Yuletide fics were revealed. I got a lovely, lovely fic -- Divergence to Infinity (Anna to the Infinite Power), which was everything I hoped for from that fandom: shiveringly creepy but with a note of hope.

Even better, my recipient was full of glee!

There was MythBusters from about the time I woke up, continuing throughout the day. Hooray!

In the afternoon, my aunt texted and wanted to know if I wanted to come for a walk. I did. She and the poodle and I had a walk around Fort Funston during which I did not need to sit down even once.

IRC has been quiet but lovely. I subscribed to comments on the news entry, because there was just so much various happiness there.

For Solstice, Aunt-Fayoumis gave me a Tarot deck and book (The Enchanted Tarot), my parents gave me a journal, and Guide Dog Aunt handed down a rice cooker (mine is going on 15 and one of the handles is cracked, and the basket is starting to look dubious. For Christmas, my parents gave me long underwear (useful! comfortable!) and the internet gave me the aforementioned fic. I have a package from my parents waiting for the Western New Year.

I'm feeling better than yesterday, but I'm sniffling and coughing intermittently.

I called my sister. She was there today, and is doing well; she's also got a cold. She's been busking. She and I have gained sister-rapport without the rivalry now that we're no longer living together. Worm burgers may be the meat of the future. (Anyone Seattle-area need an awesome smart person, multitalented? Violin teacher! Hard worker! Likes working in the organic food industry!) The only problem with our long conversation is that my voice is now a croak.

I called my best friend. He was watching movies with his mom; we chatted for a bit. I left messages for Dawn and MissKat (I called too late to catch her, I think).

There are other fun shenanigans scheduled for later on. Whee!


Also holiday-related, but on a far sadder and more hair-tearing note: ( Read more... )

Sunday morning early on the 5th, the internet advised me that Seanan McGuire had won the Campbell award for best new author. Hooray! Of course, being up at that hour ... heh. Still trying to reset my sleep schedule, but I did wind up talking with the best friend.

7:43 PM 9/5/2010
I am really going to have to check out graph databases. I was going on about this, and also on about (something he sort of pointed out to me) methods to remove a not-lube from skin after mistaken exposure. And my brain was excitedly babbling on to me about how we would have to make sure that all not-lubes had a way to remove after unhappy exposure, and from various parts of the body. Then I realized he was talking to me again.

"It takes two to tango," he said. I raised an eyebrow. This was random. "Especially when you're talking about data."

The clue dropped. Especially when you're talking about Data. Sexy Data Tango. I giggled madly, unable to do anything else but giggle, lest I open my mouth and propose marriage to him, which would have been a poor reward for his wit.

"Funny," he said. "I thought you would have caught on quicker.

"Unexpected Voltaire is unexpected!" I protested, and then my busily cross-referencing brain pulled in the expected set of cross-references for Voltaire, and I giggled even harder. (No, I don't expect the rest of you to know my cross-references there, though rest assured that if I could tell you, I would.)

2:31 PM 6/19/2010
And we are cleaning again, for Mathsie is coming to visit! Hooray! We seem to have tidied the bathroom hall in an approvable fashion.

3:02 PM 6/20/2010
From the rather shreddy bit of paper that I was sharing with my neighbors on the day of the Prop 8 closing arguments, some backchannel snark about the defense, with a few comments:
( Read more... )

10:26 PM 6/20/2010
Called a certain best friend. Did the geek walk of shame, virtually. (Coming home with your computer and everybody knows that it was something obvious that you could have done yourself.) (Which reminds me, need to grab the computer and tote it home.) Talked a bit about the Prop 8 trial and some of my hopes and a bit about the closet and ... yeah, I was babbling a bit. And then we got into the "What do we need? Sleep! When do we need it? Now! What do we need? Sleep! When do we need it? Yesterday!" thing. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

8:50 AM 6/21/2010
Not sure whether this is by the fellow who posted it, or if it's merely an archiving, but whichever it is, it's brilliant.
http://plantyhamchuk.livejournal.com/990159.html

11:57 AM 6/21/2010
A plot bunny that I really want to read, that I'll probably never write, but will hit some undefinable gen kink for crossovers: "Harry doesn't mind if he doesn't make the scene. He's got a daytime job and he's doing all right." Harry Potter moonlights in a workmanlike but not brilliant Muggle band that has a steady gig in South London. Yep, crossover with "Sultans of Swing". I want this. I need this. I have Googled in search of it. Where is it?

2:14 PM 6/22/2010
Some words I think I can agree with:
It is perhaps a good rule of thumb, when writing escapist or comic fiction about basically grim situations, to think of oneself as doing so with the intention of amusing or diverting or giving comfort to the victims. I mean, Hogan's Heroes, with all its flaws, made fun of the Nazis, not of their victims.

11:30 PM 6/22/2010
Back home, cranky. Adapted from the email I just sent family:

My car got towed tonight. I was parked legally on the street, but the private towing company currently holding my car says that I was parked on private property. I checked the clearance fore and aft for the driveways I was parked between at the time I parked, and I don't believe I was actually in their red zone. I am upset and angry. ( Read more... )

On a lighter note:
http://my-hobby.dreamwidth.org/1074.html

Adapted from the comments to a mutual friend, a quick summary of my day with Mathsie:( Read more... )

( Assorted. )

2:16 PM 5/11/2010
Chatter in Syne's journal about modesty, skill, and the difference between applied skill and teaching; my meta is starting to go off here

5:23 PM 5/11/2010
Yay chatted with the LF in between cleaning. (OMG EV, he's *younger than you*.)

1:05 AM 5/12/2010
Yay Glee was fun. Picked up Tif from work, ran by Trader Joe's, had dinner with the boys, watched Glee (oh, Puck, you embody the fail sometimes; oh, Finn, you do too), took Tif home.

Someone stumbled into my journal a year later and asked in comments for some updates to the Differences between LJ and DW entry; I made with the wall-o'-txt. There were a whole lot of great LJ feature upgrades during the last year, not the least of which was the a la carte userpics. I didn't go through the code tours in dw_dev as much as I might have in the process of making same. Maybe I can later.

1:45 AM 5/12/2010
Got in an argument with Mike last night about zombies. He thinks that I have not issued him sufficient zombies, after he read Feed. I think he may be ON FUCKING CRACK. Pleh. HOW IS THIS MY LIFE. (This is, by the way, the Mike who exists in my head and in the Cracked Phoenix trilogy. The fictional one.)

3:55 PM 5/12/2010
If you are out drinking with your friends, if your friends let you drink enough so that you pass out, you may need a better class of friends. (I recognize that opinions differ on this portion.)
Pranking drunken/sleeping/passed out friends is an old and noble tradition, but these pranks really ought to be basically harmless, or you need a better class of friends. (Opinions may differ here too, but I'm not actually listening to anyone's arguments from here on down.)
( It gets worse, and potentially triggery, fast. )

9:49 PM 5/12/2010
Perhaps Wednesdays are now down on my biological datebook as "let's sleep the better part of 12 hours today". I curl up with a book, and WHAM.

4:08 AM 5/13/2010
Gleefulness:
( Spoily for song )

4:45 AM 5/13/2010
http://damned-colonial.dreamwidth.org/476242.html

3:35 AM 5/14/2010
Perhaps I have not mentioned it lately, but jd is effectively my little brother. I mention this because Drewface hadn't realized it.

10:19 AM 5/14/2010
Last night: first there was the season finale for SPN, then there was Iron Man 2.
SPN:
( Read more... )

Iron Man 2:
It still thrills me that I can see Russian in the wild and sometimes pick out a word or two. (Now to see if I can ever level that up...) Whenever there was Russian text onscreen I was peering at it to see if I could sound it out or read it.
( Read more... )
Should probably send email to best friend inquiring about how he actually let me go on this long without watching the first Iron Man movie.

11:43 am Saturday 15th May
http://community.livejournal.com/note_to_self/1085398.html (remote to what now?)

5:30am, 17th May 2010, Monday
Been dogsitting. Yay dogsitting. Yay dogs. Sleep schedule = kerblooie. Those what follow Suggestions can see that I was entertaining myself. Those what follow my Twitter updates (on Twitter or the LJ archives of same) will see random dog pictures. Been afk of my primary computer & therefore not in IRC much.

Best friend's response to my perfectly sane query re: movies: "I AM IRON MAN:P" Never change, dearheart.

( Poodle, really stop with the humping. )

( Best friend, April Fool's Day. )

( Friday: shopping with Tif. )

( Saturday: assorted misery, then social with foxfirefey and others!! )