Rude end-user vs. tech. Great punchline; membership required.

When you're signing up for some online service or other, please take care to enter your own correct e-mail address. I say this because of the strange case of one young man whose MiGente.com profile is now scrolling the message "I cannot be bothered to enter my own correct e-mail address, so someone has hacked my page and told the world what an idiot I am."

Shrubbery. NSFW. Via karlita.

"My last word on Deathly Hallows" -- mistful is love.

GreatestJournal has recently reduced icon-space to 100 per person, down from 2,000. I'm not following along too closely with GJ, since that's merely a popular place to have a horcrux-journal (propz to mctabby for coining/popularizing the phrasing) and I'm keeping mine there for namespace and in case of downtime, but this seems both like it's going to be an unpopular move, and also like it was sort of inevitable now that there are more people there and their servers will be feeling the strain.

Last night was great fun. hcolleen and I wandered about Mill for a while, stopping in a few places before winding up at Coffee Plantation for internet and tea. It's great fun to have a quick exchange with someone and not speak or hear. I need to expand my vocabulary beyond the alphabet and approximately two words I know.

We hit the Melting Pot at the time of the reservation, and spent a while decompressing at the bar, waiting for the rest of the party. myrrhianna and gameboyguy13 were already there. I took a good healthy sip of myrrhianna's pomegranate martini-thing, and mmmmmmmm, delicious. I will have to try one of those all by myself sometime when I won't have to worry about alcohol intake. We were escorted to our table after a while, perfectly timed, as stevieg, elyssa, and luminairex arrived approximately 30 seconds later. There were introductions all around, and we got down to the Serious Business of fondue.

This was my first time there, and hcolleen's. Our waiter was a whole lot of fun. He remembered some of the party from previous visits. Evidently we, collectively, are memorable (even though I wasn't part of that earlier party). Evidently this makes two Melting Pot waiters who recognize the party. There were negotiations about the cheese plan, and we eventually settled on how to arrange dinner. The waiter give a tour of the menu. JD got presents! Presents were hilarious.

Shop talk is inevitable when it's this crowd, though it did take 45 minutes for the conversation to steer around to that. Fortunately, everyone is near enough to the same side on the political issues of the day. Nothing exploded, except for possibly our waiter's head, and that was mostly over overhearing the word "furry" and needing a definition. We are an education!

Wall Mushroom was a bizarrity. Somehow, a mushroom had escaped from the vegetable platter and wound up on the floor. It was somehow the most logical choice that one of the menfolks would then place the escaped fungal cap on top of one of the semi-walls dividing the table/booth/nook from the rest of the world. Even though it was right at eye level, our waiter missed it repeatedly. I whipped out the camera phone to record Wall Mushroom for some insane kind of posterity. This led to other cameras being brandished. There were many hilarious and semi-incriminating photos, including a spectacular unexpected upside-down one taken by Ecchi-chan.

Potstickers fall apart, unless you're very careful. That broccoli was not sufficient. No one is allowed to roast their marshmallows over the flaming turtle anymore since that one Baltimoron spoiled it for the rest of us. There was curry! A good time sense is required for cooking these things. Mmm, chocolate. Nothing below the waist counts (for wearing color). Chocolate loves my boobs more than my boobs love chocolate. DO NOT DIP THE POUND CAKE LIKE THAT. There was the required one strawberry-free plate. People got cherries. OMG cheesecake.

We retrieved Wall Mushroom, put it on one of the emptied dessert plates, and drizzled it with chocolate, because it would have been impolite to leave Wall Mushroom on the wall, in case it was not noticed. There was an attempt at taking a group picture. It turned out to be a timed video, which was hysterical. We did get a group picture. We have to do this again!


Today was not a good day for me going out to do anything. I stayed inside, read, and slept. I needed some recharge-by-self time, which is hard to get in the schedule. Fortunately, Heather does not count as People. This is very fortunate indeed. Madman is having booting up properly issues. I may want to get him a new case, since this one is not working well. I called Darkside (bad timing) and we spent a few minutes giggling over assorted random things. Always must have best friend. Tomorrow, Organ Stop Pizza is planned. Doom! Hilarity! Next weekend is Road Trip to Return JD!

Spoilers ahoy!

( 90s Music Monday: 'Follow Me', Uncle Kracker )

http://dd-b.net/NicollEvents/ -- contains some of the notable misadventures of one james_nicoll. No beverages, food items, or easily-disturbed co-workers.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/TECH/05/24/internet.moms/ -- see? LJ person!
http://heocwaeth.blogspot.com/2006/01/in-defense-of-bitterness.html -- bitter is a normal reaction to these things.
Via cmwinters: http://ashwinder.sycophanthex.com/viewstory.php?sid=4107 -- the notable clichés of Hermione Granger/Severus Snape fic.
http://ars.userfriendly.org/cartoons/?id=20070527 -- Star Wars! Hooray!
http://trickofthedark.livejournal.com/144065.html -- Dinosaur-riding Jesus shirts.

It seems that I clean up best during social times. myrrhianna and gameboyguy13 were here last night, so while we were socializing, I started shuffling around papers and picking things up and putting them closer to a place where they might belong ... and I found the palmtop I've been looking for. I got myself a shiny refurbished palmtop over a year ago, because while AzureBlue is still working, I wanted a newer one ... and there were problems with getting it synced, and I just never got around to making it work. After the great disk crash, it disappeared. I found it under the coffee table. It's plugged in and charging. AzureBlue is plugged in and charging. It occurred to me that one of the solutions to hcolleen needing to write and needing to have her story with her to write might in fact be AzureBlue. Palmtop. Does the palmtop thing. It won't surf or anything, but it is a small thing that can store writing and has a long battery life.

My day:
Saturday, I slept in. (Friday had insanity.) I lounged around in what was left of the morning, and only at the last minute did I go off to give plasma, taking City of Bones with me. (And lo, it is love so far.) A guy sitting next to me in the waiting room tried to engage me in conversation about the book. He was sketchy, so I did not converse more than terse comments; he did not get the hint. We didn't intersect after I got screened, fortunately. Then, while actually giving the plasma, there was a noisy guy with no conception of internal monologue sitting two beds over from me. It seemed like if it went through his head, he had it coming out his mouth. That can't have been true, because he didn't say anything about sex, but he was talking nonstop, shouting out the name of a basketball player every time the player showed up on the TV screen, and saying that the person operating the plasma center's TV must be a woman, because it had been tuned away from sports, and that everyone should be watching this game; every woman should be watching it to be with her man. He was the one who was howling and flailing when stuck and un-stuck. I have no desire to be anywhere near that guy ever again, even more so than with the sketchy guy. The sketchy guy I had no problems with the concept of rebuffing; this guy is just ... being himself. Very loudly himself.

After that, I called Darkside's mom. I tried calling for Darkside, but he was Out with his dad. She gave unto me some News! We chatted for a while. Then I went shopping and very wisely blew all the plasma money on groceries. I called Mama when I got home; there was news-sharing and stuff. Tay-Tay has a job that starts at 6am now, and is operating on chronic sleep-dep. Poor little sister.

I called her just after gameboyguy13 and myrrhianna poked me about dinner; I got off the phone just before they showed up on my doorstep. Perfect timing! I wandered off with them in search of dinner. There was a Mishap at Popeye's (they didn't have spicy chicken strips) so we wound up in the iHop near easalle's (in retrospect, we should have called, but I don't think any of us were braining that well at that time) and had a rousing discussion about the job stress inherent in high-level network operations centre work. JD: http://pics.livejournal.com/ladydiana/gallery/0000tzax are some of the less-alarming pictures I was talking about. I'm sure someone who knows what to Google for (or has them bookmarked) can show some real horror racks.

There was silliness with cheese straws (as illustrated) and all sorts of fun. We wound up back at the Asylum; there was gossip, iPod fun with katamari earworms, and more talking about stuff. We de-convened sometime after 2am; I went to bed by 4.

Hooray for weekends. Today maybe I'll catch up with Darkside.

She has never been out of the country, broken a bone, or smoked a cigarette; she plans to someday visit Japan. This is [azurelunatic]. (introductory notecard from Speech class some years ago)

I'm hoping that my currently unhappy sleep schedule normalizes some. I think I have it on the brink of behaving, but I'm never quite sure until I actually find myself in bed waking up the next morning.

Cleaning is a waltz, and I'm never sure whether I'm taking steps forward or backward, and which side I'm going. Worse, I'm the one leading, and I don't have a partner. Granted, the last time I waltzed where both of us knew what we were doing, I nearly got danced off the stage (thanks, Fuzzy) ... maybe leading without a partner is not so bad? But I do love waltzing. (Did you know that Seal's "Kiss from a Rose" is a waltz?)

The kitchen is its usual state of disaster area. I'm trying to get my coffee in shape to share with my co-workers. I almost never drink coffee at home, but I will drink coffee at work. This means that I have coffee I'll probably never touch unless I take it to work. Some of it is regular-ground, some of it is espresso-ground, and some of it is Turkish-ground. I decided to actually prepare some of the Turkish-ground. The proper method involves the stovetop, as I looked the recipe up. I was delighted by the scent, and I dropped some chocolate chips in, just on impulse, and the results are decent enough, if not exactly traditional.

If you're a barista, and your customer is supposed to be on decaf, but you give them wildly strong thoroughly caffeinated Turkish coffee ... would that be grounds for dismissal?

It's the ten-year anniversary of my last year at CTY, and the angsty CTY-deprivation posts on cty_therapy and similar communities are inspiring me -- I've been over the angst for a while, since LJ is my new CTY (sort of ... no few of the CTY folks are here) and I have enough mobility and free time to meet up with people should things really get lonely -- but the posts about canon music are making me want to compile my own personal canon playlists. So I've been working at that, which means listening to a lot of music and trying to weed out the ones that don't go on the canon list so I can narrow things down better. There are some songs that aren't official canon, but are personal canon. There are some songs that I never heard while I was there, but fit so well after the fact that they need to be included. And it doesn't do any good just as audio. There are the explanations of why each song fits, there should be photos ... all of these things I need to hunt down to do proper homage to that very pivotal point in my life. Better to celebrate it than to mourn it.

( Gratuitous Lyrics: ''Won't Give In'' )
I'm also trying to work on a caffeine icon for myself. I've been working on scraps of "A Cup of Time" here and there between the cracks. I've been working on Crossover a bit. I've been getting stuff typed up for my magicgeeking document. (That's something that dreadfully needs editing and putting together into coherent order as well as more content and focus. Geeze.) There's stuff that wants hole-punching. The Little Fayoumis still has an afghan that isn't even half-made. (I need to poke Sis for a good mailing address.) I have some fabric, some elastic, a sewing machine, thread, and scissors. I have grand ideas involving skirts, but somehow none of them have shown up on my actual "I'm doing this right now" schedule. I need to fix that.

Meanwhile, things like dishes and sorting papers and getting shoes put away are getting done. Tomorrow will be insane, but I can live with that...

I got up reasonably on time, but I gave myself a major scheduling malfunction when I turned my alarm clock OFF rather than hitting snooze again when I was going to "just check a few things, honest" on the computer. Heh. I was nearly late; as it was, I skidded in at 1:02 (within the grace period), without half the stuff done that I should have gotten accomplished before I left. (Most of these involved lunch.)

( Work... )

I was going to attempt to go bleed, even after work, but I was 30 seconds (approximately) too late to catch the appropriately timed 19 southbound, and (disgruntled), I waited for the Red Line to take me to writing group with no detours. On the way, I managed some work on crossovercomic. Not much, but enough to make me feel productive and get the mental juices flowing again after stalling out.

I was late to freshstartwrite by half an hour as it was. I read two things today -- "I Have a Friend" (which is a compilation of horror stories based on how I tend to start comments on some of the threads over at ginmar's) and "My Brother, the Storm" (much lighter, a LF story). hcolleen had a bizarre fictional salad (that she'd actually made, and it was tasty). I must introduce her to cadhla's idea of a salad.

meacu1pa was having car troubles. What is it with our gang and car troubles? There's been a rash of them of late! We all went to Cafe Fiat afterwards. easalle has the good kind of relatives in, and couldn't make it to either group or dinner.

Cafe Fiat is great, and has the kind of service, rapport with customers, and food that makes the place collect loyalty. Today, there was a cheesecake shortage (causing a disruption in the if only/alas balance of the universe, as I said the latter without saying the former, and did so twice) and an avocado shortage (causing free pieces of cheesecake to be distributed to those who were shorted in the avocado department). Nonetheless, service, while not always prompt, is personal, cheerful, and a joy forever. It does not hurt that the food is highly tasty.

It is much of a weirdness to be having an enthusiastic conversation about slash and smut with hcolleen (around azwriter) at Cafe Fiat, of all places.

J provided two of us currently carless ones with rides -- me to a convenient bus stop, and meacu1pa home. I caught the Red Line with no problems.

I have photos from Tuesday and Monday to upload, including a lot of rather blurry and dark ones (that will probably have to be binned) that were supposed to be of the local kittens.

Morning was me calling Qwest and complaining about their IVR, and suggesting a few solutions for it. I was good: very few of them involved reprogramming with a chainsaw. There are a lot of people upset with it.

V came over this afternoon, and I played hard-to-get with the wireless card a friend had given her and my old laptop. Or it played that with me. Or the wireless router played that with us both. We lose track of these things, ultimately.

After intermittent screaming, she took me to Fry's Electronics, where I got equipment to make the bloody thing work. I had a hard time making one of the decorative geeks understand that yes, I did indeed want both a wireless network adapter AND a regular wired NIC for the same goddamn laptop. Is there a communications blockup somewhere?

V wandered off to wherever it was that she was headed, after making plans with me for Wednesday. I beat on the wireless cards until I was to the point of tears, then (at wibbble's pointed suggestion) got something to eat before resuming. For whatever scary reason, installing the wired NIC made things work.

After this, random image-geeking and the slurping of things off Tigereye that don't need to be there (chat logs filed away safely), and setting things up properly for V. I have decided that since she operates better not knowing how things work, just knowing that they work and how to use them (more than that scares her, and she prefers to be patted on the head and told it's too geeky for her to understand), I can go ahead and just play with things so that she'll be almost in touch with the Information Age. *giggle* Yay Information Age. And I've got things almost set up for her to be in the writers' group e-mail list, too; I just need a few pokes-at-things from her.

Time's started moving oddly for me.

Sleep did not happen until far too late. I think I'm going to try to chemically disable myself for sleep tonight, because this just cannot keep happening.

In the good news, I picked up some stuff, did some assorted paperwork, got a test strip hacked out with Fuzzy, unpacked some stuff, and started in on getting the usual magical activities started up again.

Life proceeds.

I was late skidding out the door today. I just didn't want to wake up. The office says that the A/C people are coming here next Tuesday regardless. I hope they show up in the morning while I'm still here.

The movie of the day at the plasma place was Diary of a Mad Black Woman, which sounded interesting. (I wasn't watching much of it, just listening while writing.) I had a decent stick, without much of the weirdness that's been plaguing me of late.

After plasma was writing group/Cafe Fiat Star Wars marathon. The rest of the writing group besides V didn't wind up watching the movie. There was some confusion about dates, which I must admit was partially my fault for just putting it in the community calendar and not e-mailing in person to talk unambiguously about it.

Tonight's movie: The Phantom Menace. Much fun was had by all. V hasn't watched any of the later-produced trilogy. Somehow, knowing that Jar-Jar disappears in the next two movies makes him much more bearable.

I couldn't find my scissors to change colors, so I stopped knitting partway through The Phantom Menace. I suppose I could have just not cut off the green and started in with the white... good morning, genius.

It's been great having a mini-vacation. I hope I'll be able to get to bed early tonight, but I'm not entirely counting on it.

I intend to get right back on the comic tomorrow, probably while I'm between calls. If I'm on the phones. I really need the schedule for this next week. I hope I got my day off, otherwise I'll be very vexed.