Via dduane: Fuzzy Logic error messages.

Because of going gaga over trapezzoid's music, I wound up on Tindeck. Weird stuff there. The song "Pi" (the tasty remix that's going around with video, evidently) is very good listening, but listens better with the first 43 seconds lopped off. iLove my iTunes. (Related: the iHop, a portable pancake server. Uses Blackberry technology.Users tend to wind up with bluetooth. Blame dustraven.)

Hand is feeling much better, ditto with arm. All that's left now is the rather extensive bruising that's going to develop thanks to the merry whack I fetched the hand. That can be worked around.

Wound up hanging out with dustraven and trystan_laryssa this evening. Dropped on by, had fun. dustraven evidently absolutely loves Lemon Demon. Hee, hee. iHop IHOP was followed by short Lemon Demon marathon (jumbo shrimp?) and then Star Wars animations. (Where is a Darkside when a girl needs him most? Fixing a computer, that's where. Or sleeping. Silly man. ;)

Had very late and surreal conversation about the nasal stage with trystan_laryssa in the process of leaving. We were both late-night-giddy, and this led weird places. I wound up telling her the Saga of the Work Air Freshener Bricks, complete with the latest developments.

The air freshener that I sniffed was not put securely back up on the corner of the near corner stall, and fell to the floor. The following morning, I espied no air freshener on the floor in that place, but a heretofore unseen air freshener brick sitting in or near the delivery slot of the tampon/pad machine. (This is clearly the same brick, just moved some.) I fear it's giving the tampons and pads a not-so-fresh scent.

It's like a game of find-the-air-freshener. I wonder if someone should start taping them places with the thick clear tape. Just to see what would happen.

I'd been anticipating having a quiet evening at home with my friends inside the computer. Instead, I wound up over at trystan_laryssa and dustraven's, with their old roommate (who I'm sure I used to have a nickname for) and his wife and their kids, and figment0 besides.

I brought pomegranates and butterbeer, in the cream soda and buttershots assemble-it-yourself form. We played Harry Potter Scene It, then Apples to Apples. There was great hilarity over the latter, especially after the last remaining awake kid conked out. I won "clean" with "girl scouts" (judge: dustraven) and "dirty" with "car bomb" (judge: figment0) but failed to bag "fuzzy" with "cheesecake" (the sort that's been left at the back of the refrigerator too long, and what was I supposed to play, Canada, Death Valley, or Israel?). The rest of the group voted that trystan_laryssa and I had to be separated, as we were getting too high a percentage of each other's apples.

[Poll #643557]
Is it customary to decide that the green apples that a person holds are a description of them? Our crew tonight seemed to find it customary to break out into song at pseudo-random intervals, like when someone said "dead" (we went through bits of "Dead Man's Party" and then TMBG's "Dead" the second time it came up) or when Bangkok got discussed (not much between despair and ecstasy). We did that last year too, however, not playing that game, so I think it's just the group. At some point I'd like to play the game in reverse, with green apples dealt out and red apples as the challenge. We'd run out of apples more quickly that way, but still fun for all.

Midnight was a bit of a scramble, as we were rather all in game. Champagne was poured. The guys got the TV on at 6 seconds until midnight, and I wound up clinking my cellphone against glasses (I'd been looking at the time on it). I demonstrated my Secret Weapon about hanging around with smokers when we went outside: incense. The dude gave me a light. After dustraven and trystan_laryssa had their New Year's Kiss, I snagged a little bit of a smooch from her. figment0 got a peck on the cheek. Someone was letting off fireworks, people were banging on pots and pans, and someone touched off something that went fucking BOOM in rather a scary bit of noise, such that half the people present thought it had been gunfire until physical evidence in the form of we'd seen light over the trees and intervening buildings pointed out that it had to have been a far-too-large firework going off far too low, because muzzle flash is evidently neither that bright nor that high. The kid slept through it all.

The requisite car alarms were set off. It's not a fireworks display until someone's car alarm goes off; the more car alarms the better the fireworks. Is "car alarms" an Apples to Apples card? If it's not, it should be a write-in.

After we were done outside, we went back inside and finished up the game. trystan_laryssa won; she'd wound up with the best of a number of bad rounds and reached ten first.

figment0 dropped me off home. I was staggering and weaving by that point: the energy was wearing off and the booze was wearing on. Two glasses of butterbeer and a fifth of a small glass of champagne doesn't sound like a lot, but it is if you're me, which I am; it also is on that much of not supper. Heck, it was rather a lot of not breakfast and not lunch either, because I was running out to the store to get carrots for breakfast (at 6 pm) when I called trystan_laryssa, and then I wound up chatting a little, not eating breakfast, and closing down the computer and leaving. Horror of horrors: I think I Forgot to Eat Real Food. And given that I was off visiting Guide Dog Aunt, who cooks better than I do and keeps Actual Food on hand, I may well be among the few who lost weight over the holiday season.

How do you get pomegranate out of a cat? I have pomegranate on my fingers. I sent pomegranate home with the girls. I don't think the cats got into the pomegranate. I cleared dishes out from the clean dish washer into the cupboards and then from the sink into the dirty dish washer.

I want to try out the rubber ice mold that I think will work for chocolate. Someday soon.

Work happened. Beauty, from the upcoming NaNoWriMo 2005, is getting very insistent in my head. She's not quite sure who she is yet, but her story needs to be told. She doesn't even have a name yet. I refuse to allow her to gank rosalynde's.

I was on the phones. I got surveys. I was not sitting next to Figment, alas. I was sitting next to one of the Dowager Empresses of the workplace, a stately woman whose hair usually matches her outfit. I am amazed that I am picking up a reputation for being uniformly sweet and polite and nice on the phones. (I think I mentioned that I got my semiannual review the other day? The Alternate Lead Monitor took me into the back room last Friday and told me that I rock hardcore, and to keep up the good work. At this point, I'm probably more critical of my own performance on the phones than the rest of the monitoring staff is.) The Dowager Empress of Colorful Hair wanted to know if I was really as nice in person as I sound on the phones.

Any batch of new hires means new people to get to know, to screen in and screen out. Part of the process is seeing who's going to wind up in The Crowd. From a recent batch of trainees seem to have emerged two students of the Art Institute in Animation (one graduated, one current) who have been spending breaks with Figment and therefore me as well. I was going to do the simple thing and call the guy (about my age-ish, graduated) the Animator, and the girl (eighteen or nineteen, current student) the Animatrix, but then I recalled a certain cult movie and assorted animated spinoffs, and decided that for confusion's sake, I should probably not bestow that nickname upon the girl. The guy may well wind up being the Animator, and the girl may wind up being the Acolyte.

The Acolyte's alarm bird clock has been acting possessed, so I wound up bringing in my old (still functional) emergency back-up alarm clock (the one that the Little Fayoumis infamously wondered "Is that [Darkside]'s alarm clock?" about) for her to have. It was brand new in 1994, and not all the buttons work anymore, and it eats tapes, but at least it isn't possessed. My tower shelf doesn't have a clock anymore, but at least this way it'll be in use.

Benadryl sends me loopier than a very loopy thing, but at least it helps put a dent in the allergies. And there are bad, bad, bad allergies going around. Rain in the Arizona early spring makes the Arizona late spring unbreathable.

In other news, work is having overtime, hiring a bunch of n00bs, and having 10 hour shifts on Saturdays. (easalle -- I'm working late on the 30th, so I won't be able to make it. Argh.) This will prove to be interesting. dustraven and trystan_laryssa's roommate and GM for the superheroes game is working there now. Insanity shall commence, and shall run screaming in the other direction, because work is going to be post-sane, or knurd, or something like that. There will be far too much caffeine, far too little coherent thought, and far too many supervisors pulling a twelve-hour shift or longer than that.

...Heck, after pulling a few supervisor shifts on the 10 hour phone goon shifts (which translates to a 12+ shift for supervisory staff) I should be able to pull a double-shift Sunday as a phone goon (13 hours, 1/2 hour of which is between shifts) no problem.

Bad day: work was hell, and I wound up leaving early. My brain was not there. Guess who forgot feminine products this morning? Guess who needed feminine products this morning? Hellooo Bitchy Witchy Week.

Good day: after I pulled my brain back together somewhat, enough to be semi-functional (after an hour talk with Darkside), took the *(*&(*(#@$*((* painkillers (cramps are absolutely no fun), I wound up going grocery shopping with trystan_laryssa, who was taking a very grouchy and gimpy Loren. Loren on her own has a formidable grouch-potential. Ill and injured Loren needs a SWAT team. Despite the grouch-factor, there was a lot of silliness and assorted other fun.

After that, we wound back up at trystan_laryssa and dustraven's. Figment was there. Figment gives backrubs and doesn't set off my perimeter alerts even when I'm having a really bad day. That was good.

Two different people at work have now asked if Figment and I are brother and sister. trystan_laryssa told us that today too. Odd.