Furry Drama

No, not "furries" as in the people who dress-up as such.

I'm talking about the four-legged variety.

In the last couple of days I've had two different friends approach me to pet-sit. One friend asked me to crash at their house and watch over their cats while another asked if it would be possible for me to put up her dog.

The crashing-at-someone's-house thing is unattractive on a whole series of levels. The allergy to cats just makes that totally impossible. I'd suck it up, but actually sleeping over at a house permeated with cat-ness would push me over the edge.

I feel worse for my friend with the dog. I was honestly surprised she even asked me (in the roundabout way she did). I guess I'm a little flattered that she even implied she'd trust me with her dog (which is a cute little Shelty-mix).

Alas, not only would my allergies hit me, but my landlord doesn't allow pets in my building. I'd suck up the allergies (in my own apartment I'd have a bit more control over space), but the landlord would be unbending. Given that I'm totally unfamiliar with how to handle dogs, there's a whole host of terrible problems that would arise and unlike the cat-sitting (which would only be a weekend) the dog-sitting would be at least two weeks.

My family obligations (which will kick me squarely in the head during that time of October) would not mix well with dog-sitting.

I guess it's no big thing, but I do hate to let friends down.

Reading Materials

I re-read "The Name of the Wind" by Patrick Rothfuss over my week off. The paperback is the perfect size for me to dump in my jacket pocket and the story is engaging enough that I could re-read it a dozen times before I started to get tired.

In all honestly, I was putting off reading "Bloodheir" by Brian Ruckley. I liked "Winterbirth" well enough, but it's a bleak setting Ruckley has and it takes me some time to work up to getting into it. Ruckley also writes as though he's telling a Celtic/Norse saga with these great tribal blood-feuds and the like. It sort of drags at points and makes me crave something a little faster-paced.

With that in mind, I hit the local bookstore yesterday during lunch hour and found a series my friend Charles the Book Pimp recommended: the Mistborn series by Brandon Sanderson.

"Mistborn" (the first book) was on some kind of $4.99 special, so I grabbed that and the second book. The first chapter was a fast read, so I suspect I'll enjoy the book. It already reads like something Erik would be into, so I may pass this along to him when I'm done.

Ugh

I don't remember Monday mornings being this difficult to handle.

Of course, I don't normally have my next door neighbor's kid (I assume... I suppose it could have been my neighbor herself) thrashing about in the apartment like (s)he was playing handball.

fsck I have a lot of random email, too.

Gonna be a long day.

Ow

I am experiencing new and interesting forms of pain as I attempt to move about today. For a change, this has nothing to do with the beer I drank last night at my friend Steve's condo warming party.

No, this pain is purely from moving friends to the South Bay.

Lots of furniture. And it was hot. Very hot.

Getting out of bed this morning was physically quite difficult.

In preparation for work tomorrow, I examined my bike and noticed the front tire was flat. I couldn't find the hole, so I decided to pay a shop a few bucks to deal with this for me. I inflated the tire, then rode to the shop.

Just the act of pedaling hurt. And those are not the right muscles to match what I used yesterday for the move.

That ain't right.

I think I'll drive tomorrow, thank you very much.

Ow.

Ow, ow, ow...

Where's my Advil?

Ach du lieber

I just got back from SF. Specifically, I just got back from an Oktoberfest at Schroeder's.

Boots full of beer.

It's beer with sole.

I've beat that pun to death.

Lovely event after the presidential debates. I watched about an hour of Obama and McCain go at it, then I decided I've long ago made up my mind who I'm voting for. Nothing at this point is really going to influence me to change my mind. Time for beer.

Thus... Schroeder's (and the reason I came to the City to begin with).

It was also nice for my inner-voyeur. Lots of good people watching (especially lots of attractive ladies). I'm of course too much of a coward and social retard to think of ways to ice-break and talk to any of said ladies, but I had beer (and pretzels) so I'm fine.

I was a responsible(ish) lad and cut out early. Got to move friends to San Jose tomorrow.

Good times.

A few musings

1) Why is it called "Kirala"? There's no 'L' sound in Japanese!

2) I find it amusing to see people's reactions when one takes a "stay-at-home vacation" (or a "staycation", as they're now called). People give you this odd look and ask "you're not working today?" in a tone that is tinged with suspicion and a little smidge of judgment.

Makes the time-off all the sweeter.

3) I hate when I print up photos (in this case a good sixty or so) and realize too late that I opted for one size too big for my existing photo albums. D'oh!

4) French toast may well be the perfect breakfast food. French toast with a side of crispy bacon (mmm... bacon...), fresh squeezed OJ, and coffee is just heaven.

5) It's taking me longer to recover from hangovers every time I drink.

6) Sake doesn't give me hangovers... so far.

7) We've got about three months left 'till Xmas. No need to panic.

Yet.

Subarashii desu ne!

Okay, I remember a liiiiitttttllle bit of my Japanese. Chotto.

Today has a decided Japanese theme to it. While I pretty much wasted most of the day being a bum (is that truly "wasting" the day? Ask a philosopher...), two events stand out to me:

1) A package from my good friend Megumi arrived. Bless her. Any communication from her is a wonderful gift. Actual gifts are nice too. ;-)

2) Dinner with Vicky at Kirala for tasty sushi, yummy sake, and awesome company. Bonus: homebrew.

Okay, the homebrew isn't Japanese. Still... subarashii desu. In a couple of weeks, I'll taste it and expect to say "oishii desu ne!"

Look it up if you're confused.

In any event, Megumi and Vicky rock (of course).

I've otherwise spent the day watching last night's episode of "Fringe", hitting SF for no constructive purpose, and jogging (to pretend I'm healthy).

Re: "Fringe", I have to say that I'm pleasantly surprised that Abrams has hooked me on what is, on the face of it, an "X-Files" ripoff. I certainly enjoy it far better than I liked the season three opener to "Heroes".

Now, to be fair, "Heroes" didn't suck nearly as bad as I expected, based on how awful last season was. That said, it wasn't exactly good. I'm pretty much done with Sylar, half-assed time-travel stories, Claire whining, Peter-being-Peter, and Hiro and Ando being dorky.

They did all this in season one.

The attempted "freshening" of the plot by giving more characters super powers isn't helping. The new villains... okay, that's not bad. The present-Peter a victim of future-Peter pretty much kills any interest I might have out of that storyline, though.

Now, "Fringe"... I don't think that will last even a full season. The characters are intriguing enough. They'll get annoying pretty quickly, though. That's just a given.

Ah well. I can get past that as long as I have tasty sushi and excellent sake in my belly as well as fun packages from Japan.

Good times.

Godfather?

So one of my friends had a funny thing to say. She brought her son with her to the 'que. This young lad has the good taste to collect, among other things, "Star Wars" toys (as many boys do).

A couple of years back, I was cleaning out my storage space and found that I had a ridiculous number of "Star Wars" figures and toys. I loaded the lot of them up in one of those giant plastic storage tubs from Target, brought it into the office, and handed it off to my friend.

She then took it home to her son.

I'm told his excitement defied words. There's actually a funny story that accompanies his joy of playing with the toys, but I think I'll refrain from posting it here.

Recently, I've gone through scraps at my desk at work (also littered with toys), including a LEGO "Jango Fett" my friend Rach got me. I decided the time had come for these toys to go into younger hands, so once again, I looked up my friend and had her hand them off to her son.

So I talked to my friend today and thanked her for showing to the 'que. She told me her son apparently considers me his "godfather" because of all the toys.

So now I have to ask myself: do I need to buy a pin-striped suit? Do I call myself "Don"? Do I now have a minion?

This is why I won't ever be allowed to have kids. I think like this.

Recovery

So it's been a couple of days since the 'que. Nearly fifty people came, including children.

There was a remarkable amount of delicious food and an insane amount of beer. My kitchen is still covered in cases of beer. Ye gods.

As I said previously, I spent pretty much all of yesterday a bit sick.

Okay, really sick.

Super sick.

I could go into grotesque details, but I'll spare you.

Yes. That sick.

Rum. Tasty, but eeeeevil.

So today is really the most ambulatory that I've been since Saturday. I spent the morning thanking folks for showing to the 'que and for all their help. I also asked if folks had a good time (as I was pretty much lost in a haze of beer and socializing and sort of lost track of individual moments).

As far as I can tell, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, unless everyone is being really polite.

Yay!

So now I can relax and enjoy a week of sleeping in and generally slacking off.

I get all the hard jobs. Hee-hee-hee!

Wow

So the BBQ was a success. I had a moment or two of panic that the park folks had messed up the reservations, but those fears quickly faded.

Everyone seemed to have a great time. My apartment is deluged in leftovers right now.

I hit Forbidden Island with several folks afterwards. Suffice it to say I had a lot to drink.

Today, the mere thought of food has me dashing off to confess to the porcelain one. Ah well. It's the price one pays.

Friday Happy Dance

Friday! Yay!

And I actually think I have my act together for the BBQ tomorrow. Woot!

Dare I hope that things will go smoothly?

Did I just jinx myself?
-----------------

So yesterday I got to know more neighbors. I got yet another tap on my door, this time by the building's handyman accompanied by one of my upstairs neighbors (and I remembered to answer the door in pants! Yay!)

For some reason, the two were under the impression I understand, and can manipulate, modern technology instead of being a Luddite with entrophic powers over any electronic device.

Silly neighbors.

They drafted me to go upstairs and figure out how my neighbor's new TV could receive the same channels as before.

Thankfully, I figured it out and got myself an undeserved reputation as someone who can work technology.

Crap. Does this mean people will expect me to know what I'm doing?

I guess only the ones who don't actually know me...

Brrr

Seems Autumn has come a bit early this year. 'Tis a bit chilly on the bike ride in this fine, cloudless morning.

Of course, the lack of clouds may have something to do with why it was so blessedly chilly.

Felt good after a few minutes of pedalling.

Karma

Funny thing, karma.

I know people who can find a parking space in San Francisco. A good parking space.

I'm not one of those people.

I know people who won the Lottery.

Again, not one of those people.

I know people who can eat everything in sight and never gain an ounce.

I mostly loathe them and also... not among their number. Yes. I'm comfortable in my envy.

I do, however, have awesome karma in Costco lines. I seem to have a knack for finding fast-moving lines and blazing in-and-out of there in anywhere from five to fifteen minutes (unless I go to their Optical department... then all bets are off).

As little bits of good luck go, this doesn't suck. I just wish it worked in other retail lines I find myself in.

Whine, whine, whine...

Mightier than the pen?

So this is what Scott gave me.

Pretty cool, eh? Heavy as bloody hell too. Very much an ornament rather than a weapon. I keep forgetting to put it up on a wall.

Too much of a good thing?

So I got a Scottevest jacket a little while ago. It's just now cool enough that I thought I'd wear it to work today.

As I started putting my usual junk in my pockets, I realized this jacket may actually be too much of a good thing.

I like pockets. I wear cargo pants and they're usually competely full of junk. Similarly, my jackets are often filled with junk. Hell, I carry a messenger bag that's so full of junk it probably counts as weight-lifting.

This jacket has 19 pockets of excessively-zippered glory. The problem? I can't figure out what pocket has what.

That's just silly.

Won't stop me from wearing this thing, though.

*sigh*

I have problems.

Lessons

So, two things I have hopefully learned from last night's unexpected interaction with my neighbors:

1) When someone knocks at the door, take the time to go find my glasses.

2) Don't answer the door wearing boxers. Put on some damn pants. The conversations get a lot less awkward.

That's just... awesome!

I love my neighbors.

That statement could apply to the folks I work around and the folks I live around. I'm consistently pleased with how awesome my cube neighbors are, but that's not what prompted this post.

So last night, as I considered crashing early to shake the icky impending feeling of a possible head cold, I got a knock on the door.

I can count the number of times someone's knocked on my door with one hand and still be able to hold a cup of coffee (mmmm... coffee... no, mustn't get distracted...).

I open the door and it's the daughter of the neighbors from across the hall.

I should clarify: on my floor there's three families whom I believe to be Chinese (I'm guessing this based on what I recognize of spoken language) and one family that's Thai (I got this based on them telling me such).

All my neighbors rock. They have nice kids. They're all friendly. They all don't seem to mind me. We all watch out for one another.

Good times.

That said, we don't hang out together or anything. We all keep to our own business, for the most part. If we knock on one another's doors for whatever reason, it's to point out something like "your car has a flat tire" or "someone broke into your car or storage unit" or "hey, I've got some of your mail" or whatever.

This time, the mom and daughter greeted me at the door (okay, the teenage daughter greeted me. The mom was hovering in the background) with moon cakes.

As I have had it explained to me by co-workers (and now my teenage neighbor), Sunday was the Moon Festival (or the mid-Autumn Festival or variations on that theme). Part of celebrating this is giving out things like moon cakes and the like.

So, to my surprise, my neighbor hands me four moon cakes and wishes me a happy Moon Festival.

I can't recall my exact response. I think I was a bit startled (and, I was under the weather...). I recall stammering thanks, then asking the girl about her pending high school graduation (standard questions: how's school? Do you know where you're going to college? You know, the kinds of questions about real life that you hated hearing when you were graduating high school...). Then that was it. Feeling strangely flattered, I put the food in the kitchen, then crashed out at a ridiculously-early hour.

I woke up this morning and found the cakes in my kitchen as I was making breakfast.

My neighbors rock. I need to think of something nice to do in return.

Monday already?

Busy weekend!

Okay, Friday was low-key. I needed that to get caught up on watching "Burn Notice" and cleaning and such.

Saturday was the game. We started late-ish and it was pretty non-stop 'till about 9:30 or so.

Oh, and Scott gave me a sword as an early birthday present.

Scott rocks.

It's an awfully purdy sword. I'll have to take a pic.

The accompanying card will earn horrible vengeance from me, but the sword is awesome. Too unwieldy to swing around (which is good, given how tiny my apartment is), but it looks friggin' awesome.

I think I unloaded half of my current favorite books in my library on Erik and Jay.

Sunday was family time. 'Nuff said. I never did make it out to the Solano Stroll in Albany. Ah well. Another time.

Getting the pulse rate up

I woke this morning out of a vivid (and really weird) dream to instinctively look at my alarm clock.

"Oh SHIT!" I exclaimed (quite loudly... sorry neighbors), thinking I was late for work.

I was nearly up, out-of-bed, when I realized today is Saturday.

I wonder if I should be disturbed at how easily I fell back asleep (into the same weird dream)?

---

I've decided that I'll do okay in a pending zombie apocalypse, even though I don't own any firearms. I think I can do okay fashioning really nasty traps.

My imagination is perfectly suited for the diseased mess that is my mind.

And thank you, television and movies, for helping fuel that.

---

For the first time ever, I'm doing an overseas exchange for a defective product. It's a strange feeling. Makes the world feel smaller, somehow.

Following up

So I've trolled the news, curious if there's any info on this supposed home invasion that hit in my 'hood yesterday.

Nada. Zip. Zero. Nary a peep.

I don't think my neighbor is the type to yank my chain or exaggerate. News coverage is hardly an indicator anyway. I have to admit I'm really curious for more details.

Ah well.

Fringe

I finished watching the pilot of "Fringe" last night.

I wasn't expecting to enjoy it. I really wasn't. I mean, they have a Dobson's Creek (sp?) alumni in it, for god's sake.

Damn if Abrams didn't get me hooked anyway. I think it was the face-melting scene in the first ten minutes. Genius.

And the twists were pretty damn good.

Okay, seriously... what the F***????

It seems that every encounter I have with my neighbors lately is under the cloud of crime.

Down the hall from me is a lovely family of four. I like 'em. The kids are sweet. The parents are good folk. So I ran into them as I did laundry and the mom called me aside.

I talk to the family a lot. I helped them with moving stuff while the mom was pregnant. When someone tried to break in via their balcony, I took a look and helped where I could with what they should do (call the police!!!).

I've also kept them in the loop when I've had my crime encounters around the building (encountering vagrants coming from the garage area, hearing from other neighbors about burglary, etc.). So today, the mom told me that she and her hubby are friends with a family in a house across the street.

Today they were the victims of what is called a home invasion. Someone came in through the unlocked back door with a gun and... well... robbed them at gunpoint.

Prior to this, we've had maybe annual burglaries. A car gets rifled through. A couple storage units got broken into. Maybe trespassing by homeless. Stuff like that.

Introduction of a gun to a crime around here is a whole new level of scary.

I've since spread the news to the folks next door to me and across the hall. I'm not sure how productive that is, as I'm really spreading fear, but I figure people should be aware of what's going on and be alert.

I gotta admit. Armed home invasion... this is freaking me out a bit.

Just sayin'

miscellanea

If only for that pun, he must die!

---

So last night I went out to dinner at Havana, a Cuban restaurant in Alameda for my friend's birthday.

Up to that point, I haven't been a huge fan of mojitos. I like rum drinks, but I'm not a fan of soda water and mojitos have never done much for me.

It helps that prior to this, I'd only had mojitos during really horrific, liver-abusing outings that resulted in... shall we say... services at the porcelin altar?

Ain't I diplomatic and tactful?

Anyway, I'm not all that familiar with Alameda, so I got there early, found some parking, and had nothing to do. So I sat at the bar.

And I drank mojitos.

I only had two. That was more than enough. My motor skills were hosed after the first one. The second one had me spilling water, slurring my speech... yeah. Good times.

And they were delicious. So very, very good.

Thankfully I had a full dinner to sober up during. I likely only made a moderate ass out of myself. Eh. By this point, it's par for the course.

Tasty restaurant.

---

So, according to my office calendar, today (9/11) is "patriot day". When did they come up with an official holiday-ish name for 9/11? Did I miss something?

I was trolling through My Confined Space. Not surprisingly, there's tons of tasteless commentary on 9/11.

I think I'll just avoid the news today. The rhetoric is tiresome.

---

I taped Tuesday night's "Fringe" pilot. Thanks to last night's plans, I haven't had much time to watch it. I saw the first fifteen minutes as I ate breakfast this morning.

Nothing like eating oatmeal and watching someone's face melt on the telly.

Mmm...

Quotes

Sick like a socially inept fox.

Science is the foot that kicks magic square in the nuts.

Aaarrgggh!

A half-hour of slow PC.

Two reboots.

I hate Microsoft's Windows updates. I hate how they deploy them. I hate how a reboot is required.

Hate. Hate. Hate.

If hate leads to the Dark Side, then in my mind, I'm taking a lightsaber to all of Redmond, Washington.

Hate!

Coincidence?

Today they're turning on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).

My atomic clock, which is supposed to be more accurate than my crappy, battery-powered, travel clock, failed me this morning and as off by a good three hours and change.

Is that a crack in the time-space continuum I smell?

Smells like bacon.

Mmm... bacon...

I'm hungry.

Spaced 2

I'm now on season two of "Spaced".

One of the main characters got fired from his job for tearing into a child for wanting a Jar-Jar Binks doll and "isn't over Episode One."

I haven't seen a show this consistently funny since...

... um...

I'll have to get back to you on this. Gotta think.

The Joy of Doing Nothing

It's funny how I can just fritter away time doing nothing. That's pretty much how my Saturday went. I can't think back on anything constructive I did. I just wasted time.

And it felt really, really good.

I watched ABC Family's Samurai Girl mini-series (which, for the record, is about as Japanese as I am... and I'm not Japanese). It was a very corny, cheesy, guilty pleasure (mainly 'cause Jaime Chung is hot). It wasn't a good show, but I was entertained.

Oh crap. I forgot to tape my anime shows on Saturday night. Goddamnit.

And that was my last free weekend for September. After this, the month gets crazy. I have to truck inland to visit my grandmother a couple days this week (yay! Rush hour commute! Gosh I've missed that...). Mid-week I hit a birthday dinner at a Cuban restaurant for one of my friends at work. Somewhere in this mix I'm taking yet another friend out for a birthday lunch.

Then the weekend is nerd-gaming-time as we continue last month's cliffhanger... oh you don't care. Suffice it to say, the day will be busy.

The following weekend is the BBQ I'm actually organizing/hosting. I'm starting to feel a little anxious about this, truth-be-told. I've never mixed this particular crowd of people in one place before and I'm rusty at organizing social gatherings altogether, so I'm having some trouble with logistics (soda? what do I tell people they should bring? does it matter? gah!!!)

I take the week after that off completely as Autumn arrives (likely with a heat wave). Hopefully I'll be able to recharge my batteries over that time 'cause the weekend of the 27th, I help some friends move to San Jose.

And then September is pretty much over a couple of days after that. October isn't looking very relaxed either. I have a wedding to hit the first weekend of October, then the gaming cycle starts again.

At least it won't be boring.

Spaced

So I have obtained the two seasons of Spaced.

I'm only through five episodes so far.

I haven't laughed this hard in a long, long time.

I actually woke up this morning with pain in my side. I think I pulled something.

Ow.

Genius

Utter genius.

Rant time

Evite, as a website, drives me nuts. I can uncheck every possible box and and do whatever I can to tell the site not to spam people on my invite list. Means nothing. I make any change at all (like, say, make the invite more legible, etc.) and it sends out the invite again.

It's a bug, sure, but it's annoying as hell.

---

Erik sent me an mp3 of Jonathan Coulter's "Re: Your Brains". It's a song about a zombie planning to eat someone's brains. It's genius.

---

I have no idea what's in the air right now that's got my allergies in overdrive, but I wish I had some way to vaporize it.

Gah.

---

At least it's Friday.

Quote of the Day

"So Say We All" is considered a pickup line, but only at DragonCON - Ryan Sohmer

The Healing Powers of Nyquil

Yesterday I got home feeling pretty crappy. Sure, it could have been a hangover, but it didn't feel like one. I was stuffy-headed, congested, blah-blah-blah.

Might have been allergies, might have been a cold. Dunno.

Either way, I was pretty wiped out.

So, being a good little tool of drug-culture, I finished up my errands for the evening, then I did a shot of Nyquil.

This morning? I feel 100% better. Except for that weird, dream-like feeling that Nyquil leaves me with the next morning, I'm over whatever hit me yesterday.

The only weird thing is that Nyquil usually gives me really bizarre dreams that I usually remember. This time: nada.

I love Nyquil.

Drinking on a "school night"

On the face of it, there's nothing wrong with the idea of hitting "Forbidden Island" for a couple of drinks with good friends.

The devil, as they say, is in the details.

Detail One: arriving before everyone else, thus necessitating having a drink to kill time.

Detail Two: work night.

Detail Three: losing track of time and drinks while enjoying the company of said friends.

Detail Four: work night.

In the end, I figure I was pretty lucky I kept the drinks at a couple. That could have become a terrible problem. Even with that, this morning I found myself moving a bit slower than expected.

back at the salt mines

First day back at work after a week of idle laziness and epic slacking.

It's been a half-hour and I'm still sorting through email.

Gonna be that kind of day, I expect.

It's a bit disorienting being up at an ungodly-early hour and actually at work. Makes everything a little dreamlike and weird.

I think that's another way of saying I need coffee.