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Saturday, January 30, 2010

Out of Sorts

Friday:

Messed up from early AM code checkout, I slept in my car at lunch and left work an hour early. Took a short nap, then Ape and I headed out. Remember the Italian place that catered the PTA dinner thing last week? We ate there with Ape's good friend and her hubby. Yes, the food was as exquisite as we'd hoped! I personally ate half a basket of bread - soooo good.

From there it was a stop at RedBox to pick up The Proposal (for us) and Blood+ for me. As I explained to Ape, Blood+ is one of those shows I watched every ep of, and at the end, felt like maybe I missed something. I really loved the storylines, and the action was fun too. But the ending kinda left me empty.

We watched The Proposal. After the Blind Side I've gained a new appreciation for Sandra Bullock movies. It didn't hurt that this one was hilarious! After that, we chilled for awhile and then I went out to complete my work in Norg and chat some. I collected Leviathan's pact and after a long delay, a set of the -ton ninjutsu. A quick warp to Jeuno and I put them up for sale. I think two of them sold within 20 minutes!

Saturday:

Up and out - after frigid showers (more on that in a bit) we were off to see a good friend of Ape's mom in a nursing facility. She'd fallen in her apartment and ended up here. But for weeks Ape's mom couldn't get info - the apartment refused to release any info and it took time for her friend to contact her.

I don't have the best memories in those kinds of places so I wasn't exactly thrilled to go, but as a wayward healer I felt the need. And I had nothing to worry about - she was fine, and in a very nice facility. We spent the better part of an hour with her, then off to the mall.

On the way we stopped at Home Depot to check on water heater parts. The gentleman there was very helpful, mapping out a troubleshooting plan that might save me some coin. From there? Best Buy, the mall, pizza, then the movies for "Edge of Darkness" with Mel Gibson. Much better than I expected. A little weird, but fun.

At home, after grabbing the kids and putting MIL's new patio table together, I plopped Blood+ (live action version) into the PS3 whilst I ate a snack. So far? It sucks worse than vampires.

Oh, on that note, seen on a new shirt at Hot Topic: "Then Buffy staked Edward. The End."

Thursday, January 28, 2010

Busy Week So Far...

Monday:

I saw a blurb on the news about California's Prop 8 trial. This is to decide whether or not to overturn Cali's state ban on gay marriage. I believe all live coverage was banned by the state Supreme court. For some reason I misunderstood and thought all coverage was gagged. Time to read up on the progress so far. As one who voted in favor of love, I am interested in the outcome here. I'm tired of people trying to separate or vilify true lovers, regardless of gender.

Too tired and nauseous to do much of anything after dinner at Longhorn for Sis's farewell and grocery shopping. Don't even remember falling asleep.

Is it bad parenting to ask my kids to "cop-check" me whilst I drive in a... shall we say spirited manner? This would have been in the van with all four of us plus groceries.

Tuesday:

Logged on and Med started asking about Shin's Holla loss. He said if I got SMN to 30 he could guarantee a win. I joked that I'd have to do -counts fingers- like 12 more levels ^^ Then he said it was time to go get Leviathan.

We met Darkmatt, Layton and one other (sorry ^^). The Other DCed so it was just the 4 of us. And funnily enough, as we approached Lev, Med called for me to stay back. He was going to solo it?! He was on PLD and we had plenty of buff and heal support, but just one DD against a cure-spamming creature meant it was taking forever.

Darkmatt on RDM started insisting I join in, and I agreed, but Med didn't answer. I finally joined in, and with nuke support from Matt and Layton (on BLM) we finished the sea-beastie (in 15 minutes...)

Later, got the prereq quest for Warp II to finally flag, and did it quickly. Then got halfway through the Warp II fetch-a-thon before giving in to sleep. Had to get dishes and garbage sorted before bed.

Had a nice chat with Kep. Also, Dark joined my FL. Also, finally fixed my nails. Now they're really prettyful, but my index fingers need to hurry up.

Wednesday:

Between another chat marathon (Cold, Kio, LK, Deej and Kush) I finished Warp II but need to cash in the temporary item to get my scroll. And I still need to cash in Lev too. My wonderful net started dropping repeatedly at 9:30ish and I gave up trying to reconnect at 10. I honestly wonder if the State of the Union is what did me in. I can just imagine hundreds of households firing up Netflix or YouTube at the same time...

Thursday:

Whilst listening to the opening to Lion King at work, I nearly cried as I listened to the lyrics of Circle of Life. Couldn't tell you why I was so moved, though. Hmmm.

I'll be on later because I have a code checkout at midnight. I'm hopeful that this one will go smoothly. I need it to. There's been a lot of stress in the team, but thankfully I've not been the cause of very much of it.

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Stuff on My Mind

Hi all...

I've had a lot on my mind lately, so I've been a lazy Mithra. Here are some of the things that have been floating in my brain.

The Haiti quake on Tuesday the 12th. I'll be honest, I haven't spent a lot of my life thinking on Haiti even though I know it's a country in pretty dire straits. I remember some years back they were dealing with another disaster and I think some military coup. With the earthquake(s), the misery that was life in Haiti has been laid bare for the world to see. Of course, nearly 200,000 people have died and it's likely to get worse as the decay and starvation leads to more death.

Then, once in awhile, you get a miracle. Some 10-day survivors are being pulled from the rubble. I really hope there are more. But such inspiration will mean precious little to the woman who lost every member of her family in one stroke.

Tuesday:

Tonight at 9 was Shin's Holla run. It actually started pretty quickly, and the climb was cake. The fight against the Wreaker went pretty well - got it to 15% before we started having some trouble. We burned our animas a little quickly and the AoE sleep kept striking just as pots wore... I literally got stuck in the "item use" pose twice.

Wednesday:

I helped in Garlaige with a coffer hunt but I didn't take notes. I dunno if I took screenies either so I don't recall who was getting their AF gloves. Afterwards I asked the Bastokans if they could grab me arms from the Metalworks vendor since I couldn't with Windy in first. Nope, apparently the arms only come out if Bastok leads. And how often is that I wonder...

I know I spent an hour or so farming the arms for Warp II. I got one. Following that, there was an all-hands shell meeting and I went, checking Sandy's AH. Suuuure, plenty of cheap arms here, but not in Windy or Jeuno? /sigh The meet started later than the 11:15 time originally announced and I was sleepy. But I was interested in how it ran. This was also when I found out that Beni was booted from Rogues and four days after Autumn told me Archer had split off with some Rogues to reform GD. Hence Surg's meeting.

Deej was really upset at all that happened and I tried to help keep him calm during the meeting.

Thursday:

This was kind of a messed up day. I worked a full day, went home, hung out with Ape some, then took a nap. Then watched Private Practice and then headed to the dining room to log in for the server software install. Buuut. I lost my RSA key - it's the same thing as the Squenix security token. So I had to punt, calling in the server guy to meet me at work, at midnight. He was incredibly gracious about it.

We were there for about two and a half hours. He found some Krispy Kreme and I opened up some Coke Zeros. Blessedly, the install worked and I was able to finally close that rotting project.

Friday:

After work I met up with Ape to go to the PTA dinner, after driving through Mickey D's for the Clones. I wasn't expecting much at the dinner, but it wound up being very nice. The parents who hosted had a lovely home - very nice colors for the rooms we saw. The catered Italian was unreal. I haven't had bread that good since Venezia's. The conversation was good and lively.

From there, it was time for the comedy club with Sis and my parents. The opener was quite good and the headliner was top-shelf. There weren't too many minutes we weren't laughing.

Later, I think I tried to work on Warp 2 some more but Shantotto won't give me the quest.

Saturday:

My aunt Facebooked that she was really down. Xanax and alcohol down. She has MS and is in really bad shape. She's been on Zoloft for awhile now for her MS-related depression and may have missed some lately. She's the kind of person with friends everywhere and she used to take little trips all over to spend time with them. She can barely walk to the bathroom now. The Springfield Connection actually clued us in, as the rest of us, Sis included, were out at the Town Center.

From there was a brief stop at home, then on to my parents' for Dad's 62nd. We ate a veritable feast: Chicken Cordon Bleu, rice, corn, mac & cheese, yams, salad, pineapple cubes, hot dogs, desserts... And yes, I ate both corn and pineapple!

We then played a new game called Imaginif! It took a few turns to get the knack of it but then we had a blast. We followed that with Apples to Apples, for more riotous fun. We were there for like 5 hours...

Nice chat with Kep and Kaosu during another interminable party. As soon as I awoke in Vana'diel Medicinebox asked me to be his party's mage in the Citadel. When I got there I saw it was going to be a long night. WHM, SCH, DNC and BLU. While BLU and DNC are accomplished DDs and enfeeblers, I'm pretty sure setting up with basically two other mages is suboptimal. And it was. Kills took too long. We moved to Altepa where the Anticans made my life miserable. And kills still took too long.

Lost two people, one to overeager pulls ^^ And for 2.5 hours I got maybe 8k xp...

Sunday:

I got up and for some reason decided to trawl YouTube. I'm usually pretty with it, meme-wise. I remember Snakes on a Plane. I liked the movie and loved some of the 'shop work I saw. Somehow I missed "All Your Snakes Are Belong To Us". I practically wet myself laughing so hard. You'd think that the two prior days of levity would have worn me out but, no... From there I found a great "Know Your Memes" vid on the original AYB, and some nifty explanations of Speedcore.

One of these featured, among dozens of rapid-fire images and clips, a GIF-style shot of a cat-girl maid at a PC with a title like "Ha ha I'm on Internet". I Googled for it, hoping to find an image link to an original source.

Instead I found the blog of a woman in Canada who is dying from cancer. Her name is Elizabeth McClung and her blog's called "Screw Bronze". She's a big anime and manga fan and she blogs about the little things in life she can still enjoy between relapses and treatments. It's clear she and her partner are very close and both seem to be making ready as best they can. Elizabeth has a postcard project and apparently likes craft and food markets. Her passions come through and she makes no bones about the fact that she's not going gently into the night.

Given what's going on with G.S., B.C. and others, it's a lot of melancholy. I want to write this woman and give her a hug, Then I feel bad for not doing the same for B.C. I've known her for like 17 years now and they've been a little tumultuous. I need to put my feelings aside though. Healing is my job. I need to suck it up and get to work...

Spent about 3 hours doing two oil changes for Shiroma and Kuroma. Also did a little yard and garage work. I know know why ladies move their hands /just so/. Fingernails. Well, to clarify, when they have longish nails. Because if they didn't move them just so, the nails would constantly jam into things.

Then took BIL to Tijuana Flats to meet the whole crew for dinner. Later, watched The Hangover again with Ape, since our regular shows shows weren't on. That movie is still lol-worthy.

I have no idea what my friends think, but I want everyone to rest assured that I am a generally happy Mithra. I know all of us have been dealing with lots of stuff but don't worry about me. I have a pretty limitless listening ability and you all won't overwhelm me ^^

Silly fun things:

License plate seen on a smart car: "NANITE" Classic!
According to one particular web quiz, I am an Innocent Uke. But by the same site's personality profiles, I'd have to argue that I'm more of a Romantic Seme.
I love that Fireflies song :3 See? Happy!

Sunday, January 17, 2010

More Stuff

(too lazy to break these up)

Friday: Family night. We rode bikes from home all the way to Orange Tree (about 3 miles). Dogs were good and then we went to Target. Someone left a decent-looking bike lock, and others tried to force it or cut it off. I was able to... unlock it and asked the store manager if I could keep it. This was after I changed the combo and then locked our 4 bikes up lol.

Saturday: Movie day - we ate at the mall then went to see The Lovely Bones. Sad, but visually interesting. I liked their Purgatory much better than the one in that Robin Williams wreck. Oh! Got free milkshakes from Chik-Fil-A with our ticket stubs.

Took cold meds and then PLed Tomu until the effects were too strong.

Sunday: Met friends at Cracker Barrel to see their new baby. My food was OK but the fried apples I tried were too tart. I guess I'll have to stick to sweet apples. Went out for Bruster's ice cream after. Played DDR again, first time since the illness. And I tried to play FF using just the pad but of course it didn't work.

Finished Twilight. Fantastic! Now my sole book is the second Sevenwaters volume. Not sure I want to start it yet.

Monday: After karate, got situated and found out my ISP was experiencing technical difficulties. Half the net is missing and I can't play FF. AIM at least works. And those weasels are charging me for 1.5 megs down and I may get a fifth of that on any given day... You should see me try to pull down any YouTube vid.

Thursday, January 14, 2010

Midweek Madness

Tuesday

Finished Alanna: The First Adventure (Tamora Pierce). This is another YA that came from my reading list. Not bad but not nearly as textured as other works I've digested lately. It has hints of "fantasy of manners" being set in a typical kingdom with the heroine undergoing trials to become a knight. But compared to something like Phedre's trilogy, this is far too lean. Yes, I *know* it's YA. But still... At least Ghost managed to flesh out the characters a bit. Here, everything seems so cut-out and plain. I'll continue some, but I'm much more interested in Twilight and Sevenwaters. I may drag out my namesake's book (Hero and the Crown) and see how it holds up to my standards now, after 23 years.

Duoed with Deej in Sauromugue and got 38 on SCH. Ran into Tumo and Ladikaka and we hung out for a bit. Got a rescue request from Zannon and Kiora in Caedarva. Seems they tried AU13 and Zannon bit the dust and Kiora was fighting a skeleton to the bitter end. Zannon had maybe 45 minutes on the clock so I wrapped up with the twins and made my way to WG. I tried portaling through Nyzul but because I had active assault orders I couldn't get past the gate. So I had to backtrack and then get on the boat. Zannon's time expired while I was maybe 5 minutes from him... >< I was very upset.

In the meantime, Kiora succumbed to the skele and I was able to raise her. Unfortunately, the skeleton I pulled to allow her to pop cast an AoE that leveled her in her weakened state... Eventually Zannon made his way back and we trioed the NM for the mission. It was a close thing too - I wound up using everything I had and so did Zannon. But ultimately we survived and they got their key items. After some appreciation of our mutual efforts, I took off for the night.

Wed: Early night with Ape, good Law & Order. Later chat with several people including Kaosu and Kiora.

Thurs: Flagged up on SCH then Soho and I chatted some - his wife will apparently be returning for a bit this weekend. He's planning a neurobio anatomy quiz for his students. Soho dislikes Twilight; will be starting Snow Crash now. He finished BA2 and it sounds like it was so-so. "Read it if you liked the first..."

Got an invite from Aryianna to rep her. Found out the party was the one Erolynne had just announced in Shell! Got to camp at about 8:30 and we didn't stop rocking until 11. 3 full levels. Accession is freakin' awesome!

Only two deaths to interrupt the chain-pulling frenzy: Mine, when I curaga-ed with DS at the wrong time - they had just switched birds and I wound up with ALL the hate. But I popped RR quickly and they actually pulled a few more before the tank asked for a rest on my behalf - because he wanted to make sure I could heal him :3.

Second was the tank when he got hit with back to back wallops: 350 and 180. Shadows had fallen and I cured then got a regen started. But the critical damage came too quickly for me to get out of it and get another cure off. Two death-rests aside, we didn't stop once for MP, and only stopped for bathroom or snacks.

Even as we went from 38 to 40, XP was decent. It was a little below max, but the kills got faster and we weren't competing for birds so pulls were chaining in the 5s and 6s regularly. Many kudos went to the THF puller Bezgod.

Minor chuckles - Ero commended me in Shell, and then I let the tank die ^^ Groveled a bit...

At 11-ish we split up and I hastened to log out. Last-minute shell chat about Spongebob and iCarly.

There was an earlier discussion that I couldn't pay full attention to about Surg revitalizing the shell. This, as I tried to get Aryi a pearl. Apparently some of the sacks have bolted and he wants to refill our numbers and get back to a focused plan of progression.

He asked the shell what we wanted and I mentioned fun, friendship and the occasional group event and cooperation. He replied he was in it mainly for the friends ^^

Saw Tumo briefly but had to decline his AIM invite as it was too late. Ditto Kush.

Started Twilight in earnest a couple days ago and am now just over 40% into it. It's pretty amazing how closely the movie matches it, but at the same time, the smoldering romance between Ed and Bella is much more /palpable/ in the book. Ed's tortured resignation to his feelings and Bella's heedless plunge into hers comes out more strongly in print.

Monday, January 11, 2010

These Aren't The Woids You're Looking For

(I'm so sorry~!)

Air Travel: Its Impact on the Way We Live and the Way We See Ourselves

http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Social/impact/SH3.htm

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AIR TRAVEL - I

http://www.altiusdirectory.com/Travel/air-travel-I.html

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History - Part 1 (IATA About Us section)

http://www.iata.org/about/history.htm?iata=iata

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http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1O110-airtravel.html

air travel

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Reflections on air travel, defining globalization (op-ed)

http://www.bangordailynews.com/detail/120591.html

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FRIENDLY SKIES?
A CULTURAL HISTORY OF AIR TRAVEL IN
POSTWAR AMERICA

http://www.ghi-dc.org/publications/ghipubs/bu/040/115.pdf

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Weakened Update

(I'm *still* sick...)



Sat day: Younger's party at D&B. Pretty good actually! Good food, The commissioned Lego cake turned out tasty, and for once, Ferrari was working perfectly! Also, I beat Juke Box Hero on Expert! One of the parents said we show our age by the songs we pick, lol.

Sat night: got into a Dunes party on BLM. got close to 40. But as people started leaving, I wound up leader and hard trouble keeping it going after two of us needed to go. Kenjii, who joined late, left in a huff - {Thank you} {Party} {Short time}. I was trying to use Auto-trans to suggest the 4 remaining people keep going but I think they broke up.

Lent Soho my Savage body and feet for CHR boost on Bard.



Sun: Soloed the last XP for BLM40 - need D2 now ^^ Soho came out once again, wearing my duds. They look good on him with the brown hair and dark pants (Baron's?). Left to go see "It's Complicated" - 4 of 5, pretty funny and rather emotional. Also a little spicy. And Streep finds a way to cook a lot, as she did in Julie & Julia.

Sun night: shell party, Fury style! Got BLU17 but the party ended when Fury took another shot of meds and fell out. Saw Andy and we chatted briefly. Wished her a happy birthday. Kym asked for help in the Jungle, and I helped her find her way, and then escorted her to the crystal.

Long chat with Kep, plus shorter party chat with Deej, Kush and Kaosu.

Friday, January 8, 2010

New Years and Such

Hi All! Happy New Year!

I've been very busy with the holidays, family, reading, and some other stuff. I haven't been idle in Vana'diel, but I did take some nights off with Ape, and when I was feeling icky.

Saturday the 2nd was another go at CoP spires. Argyle set this one up and we did Mea and Holla. Mea was the usual cake and Holla went much better (I was WHM again O.O) but we lost. I did everything possible but we just couldn't deliver the pain faster than we were taking it. Arg later caught up with me, enthusiastically recalling he used to do these with Paladins - he'd forgotten it seemed and set us up with a Ninja tank.

I had a shell party in Caedarva Mire which got me my second banked merit. We had a rough start when an early pull linked. Once we settled down it all worked. I messed up by going /BLM instead of /SCH and the lack of MP slowed us down and made me fretful.

I helped several Rogues in Korroloka Tunnel who were looking for an NM and doing some light XPing. There was quite a lot of death as half of us got separated and then we just kept getting picked on. Ben, Autumn, Bwynn, ?, and ?

Thursday the 7th I helped Stoik with a gob he wanted to farm for Airtanks. He had help from Kat and later Norb. One bomb killed him and took me to 1HP. Ultimately we killed like 6 of them.

I also shut Jesup down at the end of December. I had already sold off or transferred most of his gear. Soon I'll add a mule to my account. Arg suggested Ginger (something - I forgot! Sorry!). I'm not sure which way I'm going with her, but she will almost certainly be a small Mithra.

One night I spent a lot of time organizing my screenies so I can take more. I also organized old gear and finished the Dangruf Stone quest to get rid of it. If I didn't already say, I did Gobbie 7, and I still need more room...

Speaking of gear, I asked Stoik for my Pilgrim's Tunica back. He didn't remember and I checked the ol' blog. I lent it to him on July 28th. He doubted he even had Bee then but that's what my blog is for. I'd thought he was going to bring it to the gob hunt last night (as he sent me POL mail to ask my help before I'd even logged in) but he didn't. No biggie. But I do want it back when I pick back up on SMN and BLU. Truthfully, all the others can use it as well...

I read Daughter of the Forest (Juliet Marillier), Give Up The Ghost (Megan Crewe) and most of Cast in Shadows (Michelle Sagara). I only have like 40 pages on the last. Up next is Son of the Shadows (sequel to Daughter) and Twilight.

Daughter was excellent. I'm not up on Celtic lore, despite Ape's side of the family being Scottish (with perhaps some Irish) and my father's side has some Irish. It's based on a legend about 6 sons turned to swans by Fair Folk and their lone sister breaking the enchantment under a year-long curse... I very nearly cried at the end - finally! It was truly a beautiful ending and I was glad to finally get weepy over something. I was beginning to worry I'd become emotionally numb.

Ghost is a YA novel set in high school. Cass is able to see some of the dearly departed and makes friends with them, mainly at school. She notes that they see everything and are more than happy to share it with anyone able and willing to listen. She uses the intel she gathers to expose the ongoing (and more or less normal) duplicity the students ply on each other. She ultimately seeks revenge on her former best friend who now taunts her. She thinks she has an angle but not only does she not get her ultimate revenge, she finds something in the land of the living worth focusing on.

I was gently surprised by the ending and overall enjoyed it. The rec came to me via Slashdot user Halcyon1234. After I finished the book, I contacted him. Turns out he and Ms. Crewe are in the same writer's group. Cool!

Shadow is a Luna Books (a Harlequin imprint) book. I was under the impression this imprint is for fantasy romance, but so far this particular book hasn't really had much there. It's only the first of several, and it's clear there's a strong possibility of a good one. That aside, the story itself is very nice. It's a police procedural set on a world with 7 races and the attendant stresses and interactions betwixt. There's also magic and myth. I'll write something better up later. Maybe.

Work's going well, but once again, I may be on forced march. But not for too long. Sad to say my dad and bro in law are fearful for theirs. So I'll not complain (too much) and thank God my employer sees fit to nominate me to long-term roles and such.

Things seem to be going well with the Milk Maids - all weathered the holidays and seem to be in pretty good spirits. Rogues rolls on and I keep missing events, but thankfully there's enough of us to go around.

Just (literally) finished watching (500) Days of Summer. Pretty cute and I liked the ending. Neat narrative device with the (x) Days thing too. Also, I think Ikea stores are the weirdest things in retail, but I want badly to go back to our nearest one!

I need to post a pic - if I failed to mention this, Raiho (SMT:DS2 CE pack-in plushie) watches over my driving and guards my car. He's very cute in his uniform.