In the last 24 hours, I posted the following to Twitter:

• Monday, 0005: ... think I'm probably depressed.
• Monday, 0846: Called Dawn last night. Had been a few weeks. Turned out she'd hosed her phone with a download. She was on the point of calling Darkside.
• Monday, 0938: Not the exact recipe, but http://tinyurl.com/cqnm6r is inspiration for tonight's supper.
• Monday, 0942: @emptybackpack Thanks. It's mostly internal stuff. Lots will be solved with a damn job. :)
• Monday, 1144: I'm at San Mateo - http://bkite.com/04tPK
( read the other 22 )

Follow me on Twitter.

Prior to the late lunch plans, I wandered out to get Vash washed and vacuumed, because he was due it. Yay, vacuuming. I found a lost lip gloss, although I have no idea what condition it will be in due to melty melty.

Schedule realities being what they are, it did not work to get everybody together for lunch at the same time. That was all right.

JD and I drove out to Mesa to collect my best friend. We negotiated, prior, the who-sits-where issue. JD is little brother and guest. Darkside is best friend++. Guest ordinarily would trump friend, however, best++ trumps little brother.

I was completely incoherent when Darkside's parents made routine inquiries of me, of the sort that you make to one's only son's female best friend of 8+ years. See, when a random LJ employee in Russia was looking through /friendsfriends last night, one thing led to another, and pretty soon the CEO of SUP (!) was making inquiries about the documentation in question. No clue what is going to happen next, nor when, but just being noticed is amazing to me. While my presence in that employee's /friendsfriends is of course due to the people who know me, my writing getting noticed in this way is entirely due to its own merits. I had called Dad earlier, and Dad had some insights and ideas for career-type moves related to what it is that I actually do. (He mentions that I understand things from their principles, rather than only according to their documentation. I also understand or work to understand the underlying need of questions or feature requests (supportmindread), which he taught me by example. He hadn't been aware that he did this, when I mentioned it. I also remember things and track related items in connection to their role in the larger scheme of things. Together this gives me the talent I have.) I will therefore send a copy of said essay to best friend's parents, even though I doubt that it will be useful to them.

JD headed for the back seat as we were headed for the car. This caused Darkside to question him, as shouldn't the guest be getting to ride shotgun? JD did not have a quick answer for this inquiry. We headed off. This is the first time I have ever driven Darkside anywhere but crazy. Previously when riding together he has been driving, or someone else has. He's been teasingly paranoid about my driving skills ever since learning that I was loose on the roads, mostly because he wasn't used to the concept. I also know how his dad drives. This led to me being more self-conscious than usual, although I am a very decent driver, and was on my absolute best behavior on the road.

Advised Darkside of that game I play with myself about counting cops on the way home. There are usually about 4.

Darkside and JD started cheerfully bonding over video games and bad, bad puns. JD got to see for himself exactly how much worse my natural tendency to pun becomes in the presence of my dear best friend. We started on bad database puns and were still punting them around several miles later.

Dawn and her husband were still on their way when we arrived at the pub in question. No matter; we got drinks and started giggling with our server, and geeking commenced hardcore, as he was also geek. JD's habit of dropping salsa in people's water was mentioned, apropos the salsa and chips. The Anvil Incident came up. Eventually, Dawn and husband showed up, and a hilarious time was had by all, including the server. I made the introductions. Darkside and Dawn know JD as "the guy who hugged AK-47 Guy". We started a List of Things Darkside is Not Allowed To Do In Game. Twilight came up. It went down again. There was a whole bunch of fun. Dawn and her husband had to leave once the car shop called.

A nearby table mentioned puppycam. The internet has arrived! They also mentioned nipple hair at complete random, so that disrupted JD and me. Darkside did not notice that bit.

Dawn made with much of the hugs. We will have to get all together again. I miss her so much. I will miss Darkside so much.

The boys were still giggling on the drive back, so I inquired whether we would be stopping at our place to play games. However, the games that JD had brought were not deemed sufficient by Darkside, so we continued to his place. We then were invited in, and gaming commenced, which was complicated by Darkside's ancient PS2 and his lack of multiple controllers for certain other systems. His room was clearly not expecting visitors, which his mother twitted him about a bit. Darkside pretty much cannot succeed a stealth roll in front of me, because when he tries to act sneaky I notice what he's doing automatically, thus I caught him quickly and quietly putting away stray (clean) underpants (judging from the color and destination). I did get a lot of plotting in while the boys played. Then he showed us the plotty cut-scenes from Devil May Cry 4.

That made it pretty late. JD was not horribly tired, and I was still very, very wired, so we went for a bit of a drive and chatted about stuff. And now we're home.

Got sleep. Woke up. Played online. Petted the cat. Read. Tried calling Dawn; she was at work. She called me back on her lunch break. Is it just me who's boggled by how people sound surprised that I don't hate Darkside's guts and/or am still (best) friends with him? Because, really, best-friend-in-the-universe is not something that I declare lightly, nor something that I give up lightly at the first sign of trouble. I may be a flake in all my other relationships, but that one is something special, and would take something more than my hurt feelings to destroy. (They'll need more than a crane.) m

Tried calling Darkside. No answer in the morning. Connected around 5pm, chatted briefly, though his headache won out eventually. Dawn is to be in town Septemberish; we will make plans. I'm still the communications hub of the old crowd. Touched base with iroshi. (I hadn't known that the thing in my head did referrals too! Also: soulmates and their multiple functions.)

The space bar is going out on the laptop keyboard here. It's taken a beating, in the years I've had this thing. This laptop is still in better condition than my last one, though.

Started going through the queue. It wasn't as scary as the last few times, but I didn't get half as much done. I did get sidetracked, because while I was going searching for precedents to one thing, I discovered a category of things that hadn't been tagged at all. (Screening.) So I went through the comments tag list and pulled out all the screening ones and tagged them, and tagged some freezing ones that weren't tagged as well. And then I found some older ones that had been sneakily implemented coincidentally and the "oh this happened" hadn't gotten so far as to wind up getting them tagged. So they got tagged. Well, the one that got me started on that particular train was the one that didn't have any sort of status tag on it. So I had to figure out what it was, and it was the sort of thing where I could check really quickly to see if it had happened, and, well, it had! (Adding the recent comments page to the site map, to be specific.)

gameboyguy13 got off work at some point in there, and came over. There was pie-related insanity.

JD: "It would be bad to have pie *and* cheesecake for dinner, right?"
Azz: "Right. Pick one. ...Or, have one for dinner and the other for dessert."

The cheesecake spawned more insanity. IRC tells the tale:
( Read more... )

I dropped JD off and went off to pick up hcolleen, who'd had a day at least from heck, if not hell. (She got my brain on the topic of poly vs. mono wiring, more about soulmates, and me. That's going to need some reflection, possibly under lock or filter.) I dropped her off at home and made tortillas, bread, and ice cream happen. (JD, you're welcome to some. It's in the freezer.)

Monday will be a Great Stats Crunch. I can hardly wait. I have prepared, with cherries, chocolate, and documentation.

Dear people who love Steve Irwin while totally and completely not getting his #1 driving principle, please not to be stupid. Steve would kick your ass.

Sometimes medicine is wonderful.

Teenage Mutant Ninja BATMAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!

Yet one more reason that this administration leaves me nauseated.

Seriously, what part of "if you have no eyes, please not to be driving" does this guy not get? Extra points for the t-shirt.

Hooray for the reconstructed Turing Bombe! (This, like spaceflight, makes my eyes prickle a bit.) Via lightningwatch.

Dear Survey People of the world,
WebIQ does not play well with FireFox. Also, using checkboxes where you should be using radio buttons? Generally frowned on.
No love,
Rev. Miss Lunatic

No power in verse will stop me. Power in prose, however, has a fighting chance.

A heartwarming spider story.

Origami! Computers! DNA!

uovo di colombo
Yes, it has gotten to the point of hakanuka-nuka as far as I'm concerned with Leftover Leftovers Guy. (hcolleen owns They Have a Word For It, and I'm having too much fun.)
Confianza. That's how much I trust Darkside. And there's a lot of haragei in the conversations -- a lot of what I transcribe of the assorted conversations is indirect and completely clear of meaning if you're us. A lot of the moments are yoin, resonating through time to touch again and again.

( Work! )

After that all went well. I got the query run, and pulled my data and shoved it in Excel, and did the PivotCharts. Dawn called, and I finished up that with my hands and aesthetics (very important in things that will be used in a meeting on Friday) while using my brain and my gossip to catch up with her. She is a reality check for me on all matters Darkside.

Darkside is about as social as Snape, except with geekboy/fanboy enthusiasm in certain areas. A chronically sleep-deprived Snape. Without children to teach, but with end-users. Without Voldemort, but with his dad. "Children, when they're in school, they know they're supposed to be learning," adds hcolleen. Darkside is a grouch.

If you Floo-call Snape, and he says that he will be cleaning his lab on Saturday, and otherwise engaged on Sunday, and to not show up, you don't show up. In the event you disobey his directive, and show up as the chronic-insomniac Potions Master is preparing for what little sleep he'll get, you will expect to be carved a new one of whatever you evidently don't have enough of. You do not expect said grouch to halfheartedly snarl a bit, then apologize and tell you details about the distasteful business he has to endure on the morrow.

That's about the scale of Darkside's actions on this front. *smirk* Um, go, me?

Now I'm trying to figure out which of the actors in The 40 Year Old Virgin looks like Mr. Shallow. He's the young one with the tattooed arms in the movie, but I haven't the foggiest what name goes with that character. But he so looks like Mr. Shallow. And that's totally hot.

Have been reading romance novels lately. Eeeuuuurgh? Some are decent. Some are very bad. If I do publish there, I doubt Darkside would read me even out of a sense of duty.

V returns on Tuesday.

At dinner tonight, someone indicated that I was sitting on the Has Relationship side of the table. Which was very weird. I don't technically consider myself In A Relationship as far as all crucial parts of relationships like hugs and kisses and any attempt to stay together goes. I do consider myself taken as far as being available to new relationship prospects goes. It's a very weird limbo, very much like the one I found myself in back in high school. That one had a lot more emotional anguish and a lot less personal satisfaction. This one is a comfort zone and a warm, mutually agreeable, trusting friendship. But does it count as a relationship? It brings me some of the same satisfaction of one, because I love openly and happily, and I know that I am cared for deeply. But one of the things where I know it's a relationship is where I can spend significant physical time, when there is physical time, curled up next to, being petted, and wrapped securely in their arms. It's very much not a relationship. Sorry. Curled up next to is iffy. The rest are generally right out.

My own personal creativity has bottomed out because of all the creative effort I have to expend at work. Price paid for job that takes hard-work-creativity time? Less to spend as wished on personal projects.

I seem to have become the Neighborhood Muse for a bit here. First the hisssstorical thing. Then Shawn calling me in a tizzy because he's stuck and needs a muse-moment. Then the other thing that Dawn was talking about. Goodness.

I'm having Sunday off. I need Sunday off.

Dawn's in town until Monday morning early, and won't be able to get away much. She's escaping at 8:30 tonight, and plotted that we might meet at Denny's for coffee or something.

"We", when it's us, unless it's explicitly a girls' night, always includes her Dave and my bondmate/best friend Darkside. Dave will be there tonight. Darkside ... I called. He said he'd love to, but couldn't. Alas. Busy.

The original plan, as pried out of Dawn last night: meet at Metrocenter at 11:30-ish, get lunch, see movie. Dawn and her husband were to pick me up, as bus service on Sundays is spotty, and I wanted to show her my new place anyway. They were supposed to come by at 11. I decided to set my alarm for 10 to be on the safe side. (Usually, a half-hour before departure time is all I need.) But I know how these things work.

At 10:30 (approximately) the phone rang. Did I mention that Darkside is very often at least an hour early to any given event? I have come to factor this in to my plans after the notorious broken VCR event of a few years back. He'd lost my right number; he'd had to call Dawn to get it.

Dawn brought Thanksgiving leftovers for me, a nice large plateful. I stashed them in the refrigerator. Thursday I mostly had popcorn and carrots, because I wasn't really hungry. We went out and had lunch. We carpooled. Dawn has a new car. We went in that. Darkside's car still needs a serious workover. The thing with the shaking has been fixed; a tired needed replacing. Lunch was Fuddrucker's, in the Elvis booth. I was quiet. I can hold my own with Darkside and Dawn, but when Dawn's husband enters the fray, I'm out of the conversation, because he dominates any conversation he's in, and when it's television and movie trivia, I'm lost unless it's something I've read books about or actually seen myself, and that's rare.

Dawn invited me to the family Thanksgiving the year after next (next year, it's going to be in California), and made it known to Darkside that he is invited as well. I let Dawn know that I'd love to come, unless some more immediate family obligations happen. (What I meant, of course, was that as much as I would love to be with Dawn for Thanksgiving, if Darkside's mom invites me, I'm there. Dawn deciphered my meaning handily.)

Movie was good, for the fourth time. There was elbowing and whispering. Dawn pulled her seating magic and made sure that Darkside and I were sitting together. Darkside and Draco Malfoy look a lot alike again, except Darkside's hairline is further back, his hair is darker, and he's more pointy.

The bond needed that time in the quiet and dark.

I know how to get him to talk: I just sit there and be quiet.
I think I know, now, how to court him.

Dawn's husband is a California driver. Enter the California Driver versus the Arizona Black Friday Mall. The finger was utilized. Darkside and I exchanged glances. Dawn murmured soothing platitudes. I waved at the college as we passed it, and joined Darkside in saluting it. Darkside salutes all of his former institutions of learning thus. I find it endearing.

We discussed the movie, but seemed to find it overall good. I grumped about one thing that bothered me (a specific thing was named incorrectly) and lo, debate sprang up as to whether it was correct or not. This moved on into discussing other movies, and in particular something particularly cheesy starring Bruce Willis in a comedy pretending to be an action flick.

Dawn and her husband had to depart, as they had family dinner things to do. Darkside left then as well. I gave Dawn some of the promised blood cordial.

Life is good.

Talked with Dawn way too late last night. Unless my memories are entirely too mussed, I think she said that her entire company was participating in Talk Like A Pirate Day, partly in promotion for an upcoming attraction. Savvy?

It's fun having friends who work for the Mouse.

Proper use of one-dimensional villains: converting three-dimensional characters to join the Dark Side, thus giving us 3D villains like Darth Vader.

Dawn and I were discussing this while shopping, and she came up with the #1 reason why young Skywalker (the elder) went to the Dark Side: Palpatine promised to never call him 'Annie'.

I need more icons.

There were four of us, back in college. Almost a full elemental circle. We had a slender quick-witted Fire with a caustic sense of humor, a large and solid Earth who could not be startled by anything, and two giggly gossipy Airs. We had an excellent time.

Only the three of us are still in the state. I'm the communications link. I keep in touch with all the other three...

Microsoft Paint is fun. I have drawn three of us standing together, 100x100, 28 color. The Earth, being taller, is standing in back rolling his eyes. The Fire and I are giving each other bunny ears, and will probably have started wrestling by the time the observer starts glancing away. We're all smiling. Well, the Earth is smiling, the Fire is smirking, and I'm looking goofy. Both of them need to shave, and I need a glasses upgrade.

I love Paint.

Before that, there were three of us, Fire, Air, and Water. I drew us, too. That was larger, took longer. Just as fun.