Spinning on that dizzy edge

Wheeee, I'm going to Vancouver! The problem with being unable to commit until the last minute, though, means that now I have to race around getting all the details locked down. Having the teller at my bank fuck up a certified check has not helped my calm at all.

I interviewed with my boss today about joining the web design and support division that is being moved to our location from the main office. It seems big and scary, which means my complacent, slacker self should totally do it in the name of self-improvement and job training. The meeting, plus a desultory poke at my current project that should have been wrapped up weeks ago, has constituted all the actual work I've done today. Oops.

All Hail the Emperor! Oh, bless my little man for finding new and exciting ways to be awesome while I've been wallowing. He's met his goals at school for three weeks in a row, so his social skills teacher is allowing him to self-monitor. I'm not quite sure of the details, but I think it means he signs his own sheet at the end of the day. He is so proud of himself, I could just burst. He was amazing, too, at his IEP meeting a couple of weeks ago; he gave the introduction of his goals, challenges, and accomplishments, and was so smooth about it. I wish I'd taped it.

Plus, I finally went looking and discovered that "Avatar: the Last Airbender" is on Netflix. I sneakily put it on this past weekend while he was playing on his DS. He was hooked almost instantly. We're almost at the end of season 2 now, with the constant refrain of "Mom, put on Avatar please!". Thank God - if I had to endure any more "Pokemon" or "Johnny Test", even as background noise, I think I might have gouged out my ears. I wish I had tuned in earlier! I suppose now is a great time to play catch-up, so we can launch right into "Korra" when we're done. \o/

Tomorrow at this time I will be heading for the airport, on my way to Seattle. With all the packing, planning, and preparation I have left to do, sleeping tonight may be optional.

If cleanliness is next to Godliness, and Zenliness is next to mindfulness, then I am spiritually bankrupt. *sigh*

I finally got the last of the Christmas crap packed up and put away this past weekend, way past overdue. I never got holiday cards sent out, I baked zero cookies, and I got all of two ornaments hung on the Space Battle tree, so why it took me so long to undo it all, I have no idea. It feels so good to have it done; every time I walk by the living room, I breathe a sigh of relief. The rest of the house is still drowning in clutter, though, try as I might to dig our way out.

I have been distracted at work for months. Depression, sleep debts, SAD, family issues, health issues - all I've wanted to do at work is surf the AO3 for fic and nurse my new crush on Chris Evans. (I blame his role as Jensen in "The Losers", because I am an absolute sucker for smartasses in glasses.) Seriously, if you ever want to pimp me into a fandom, tell me there's a tall guy who has short mousy brown hair, maybe a little bit of facial scruff, blue or green eyes, and is fucking brilliant on or offscreen, glasses a bonus, and I will curse you even as I download that shit as fast as I can. (David Hewlett, Tahmoh Penikett, Sean Murray, Chris Pine, Ben Browder...damn your stupid faces.)

At least I got my Festivids entry done (a Jake 2.0 vid! Go watch it, eh?) to the happiness of the recipient. I also wrote a last-minute entry in the Losers fic Scramble (created for kate in a feverish 3-hour binge two Fridays ago). It's my first A03 offering; now I really should post the rest of my stuff, I suppose.

Tomorrow's Friday, right? Weekends are where I'm a Viking. In my sleep, doncha know.

OK, it's not as bad as that. But this kind of grey (or rather dark, now that DST is done), gloomy, rainy weather is best appreciated from the comforts of my couch, with a blanket and some form of chocolate in hand.

I have several long and/or thinky posts in my head. This is not one of them. This is a "I have got to close some of these tabs I wanted to share before Firefox blows up" post.

David Hewlett posting covetous pictures of his son's shoes ("I know That thou shalt not covet thy sons running shoes...but they're Darth Vader light-up ones!") makes me all kinds of happy. One, because he again proves that he is a geek after my own heart. Two, I want a pair for me, and Three, because the Emperor would love those, too. (Though after reading the negative reviews, I think I'd be nervous about buying them.)

This interview with Kevin Murphy about Caprica is fascinating, as he talks about working with Jane Espenson, the problems in their storytelling, the process of writing, and overall making me :( that we never got to see what they had planned for the future. Even if you didn't watch Caprica or BSG, it's still a great article about sci-fi shows, writing for TV, and how advertising can adversely affect the path of a show.

This link (from inlovewithnight, I think?) about giving yourself permission to eat was both good and hard to read. It's a topic I struggle with basically every day. I wish I could rush out and show this to everyone, and internalize it myself at the same time. I hope it's one of those issues that repeated exposure will make it easier to adopt.

Wil Wheaton shared this link of an acoustic guitar duo named Rodrigo y Gabriela playing their hearts out. I love everything about this performance: their energy, the intricacy of the playing, the woman's enthusiastic percussive guitar playing (just look at her smile as she sweats!), and the delight of the audience.

Also, can someone explain why I can view YouTube links here at work through Google+ and through Gmail, but not YouTube directly, and how I can exploit this to view anything from YouTube? Right now, I can view embedded video and anything that comes up on the Recommended list or whatever YouTube calls the related videos, but I can't input a search. I love that it works (it's a pleasant relief from the relentless Big Brothering of my network access), I just want to bend it further to my own needs. *grin*

I don't own an iPad or iPhone or anything of that ilk, but with apps like this Warehouse 13 Farnsworth Video Communicator, I really, really want one. (Original messages from Artie and Claudia! What's not to love?)

Now I need to go home and similarly relieve my DVR by watching and deleting some of my saved shows. Too much TV to watch is not the worst problem to have.

Phew! Thanks to sabaceanbabe, my Vividcon housing worry is abated. Woo-hoo!

I think I may have an idea of how Chuck Bartowski feels when he gets an intercept flash - I just did a quick and dirty recon through our nightly production process to find out where a new update program should go, in order to be able to explain it to others, and now I have something akin to a Sudden Expert Headache. All that information, all at once, all for me! Woof.

So glad it's almost time to go home. And tomorrow's Friday!

...And checking the weather, of course it's going to rain again all weekend. Nyargh.

Did you know that if we abolished the minimum wage and unemployment compensation, everything in this country would be magically fixed? Because anybody can get a job! And if they can't, it's their own fault!

This would be why I leave the lunch table every time this co-worker sits down. It's not enough that he's a single, middle-aged white guy who lives with his mom and is probably earning more than I am, which is well above minimum wage, and is deaf to the fact that he might be a little bit more privileged than the average person who needs every scrap of wage that the government is required to give them. He attacks me whenever I express any kind of liberal opinion, and then disregards anything I say until that fateful day when I agree with him.

Oh! And because I was not filled with enough rage when I left the table after trying to explain to him why I think getting rid of minimum wage in order to let the freaking MARKET control wages is a really crappy idea...

( Getyer offensive emails here! )

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP BEFORE I FREAKING SEW YOUR HANDS TO YOUR MOUTH SO YOU CANNOT SPEAK OR TYPE.

It feels good to have made it to Friday. Ahhhh...

( Car stuff )

( Work stuff )

( Imperial amusements: Merch, Legos, and Thundercats HO! )

If I accomplish half the things that sound promising this weekend, I'll be doing great. Meijer is hosting a Toy Story party, Borders has a couple of excellent coupons for kids' toys and games and general merchandise, and Bath and Body Works has a couple of tempting offers as well. There's a local Brews, Blues, and BBQ going on with kid options, and I'd love for us to see "Toy Story 3" while it's in the theaters. Plus more gardening if the weather isn't gross, and the ongoing cleanup efforts in the house, and... Send in the clones, already!

At least in this non-stop game of Good News/Bad News, the good still seems to be winning.

Yesterday, the husband thought he was going to see HR for his exit interview. He wound up having it with his boss. All awkwardness aside, the husband said it went well, and info was shared. Then the boss of the boss pulled my husband aside and offered him a position in another department. Same pay, crappier hours (he'll have to work at least a couple of weekends a month and unknown nights), but hey, continued employment! Thankfully the husband said yes today. He'll take a week of vacation to regroup (and work on the honey-do list), then return.

Of course, Fate rewarded him for this decision with a flat tire at the end of the day. So now both cars need repairs.

You know how Futurama is supposed to be coming back Real Soon Now? Well, um, it may not be with the original voice cast. Is there nothing that Fox Studios or FOX TV can't screw up?

I am getting more and more distracted by the upcoming cons. With the United airlines sale that was announced today, I might even be able to make it to the Pittsburgh fangirlium! *fingers crossed* that my folks can sit the Emperor two weekends in a row.

Gaming was canceled tomorrow (BOO), but perhaps this means I'll get to see Harry Potter that night (YAY).

*YAWN* Man, when did 11:30 PM get to be a late night? Later, all.

The husband just called me for the umpteenth time since he started working at his current job, emotionally strung out because his boss is a vicious asshole.  Said boss chose to blame a tech's failure to show at a client site and a cascade of other departments' failure to notice it on my husband.  Said boss forced my husband to fucking sign an HR complaint that he is insubordinate and derelict in his duties.  This is the second such piece of bullshit the Boss has perpetrated on Husband in the past couple of weeks.
( Pertinent details and bile )

I advised my husband to get the fuck out of there for today and go home, and tomorrow set up a meeting with Boss' Boss to talk about what Husband can do.

Anyone have any suggestions for framing the conversation in a productive (and hopefully job-retaining) way?  I've already told him that I'm behind him quitting, but I don't know if that will be any kind of effective, for lack of a better word, threat to improving his immediate situation.

Any and all help would be appreciated.

Wow. Michael Jackson really is a total crazypants.

I got a little carried away at lunch today and started railing at the complete idiocy that is NCLB. Most of the details were new to my co-workers (all of whom had kids in school). One of them chimed in that if Obama fixed it, it would be the first useful thing he'd done since he'd gotten into office. She then proceeded to scoff at the stimulus package, saying that all future children would be born into debt beyond repayment. I had to bite down really hard on responses like "Yeah, closing down Gitmo was such a waste of time!" or "It's a shame that Obama cast the country into a financial pit of despair after Bush made us all rich!" These people can drive me crazy.

But hey, the Emperor is doing marvelously in school! His teachers are happy and full of praise for him, we're not walking into to reams of incidence reports in his cubby anymore, and he continues to make us laugh on a daily basis. Of course, he'd love it if he could just sit home and play Lego Star Wars all day. *grin* I don't know if the improvements at school are necessarily related to his PS2 privileges, but I'm certainly not complaining.

Now, if the weather can deliver on the forecasters' earlier promises of warm temps and sunshine for this weekend, life would be near perfect. Here's hoping.

I got told this morning to test the hell out of the software, then this afternoon got my head snapped off for finding more bugs. Welcome Friday afternoon surfing!

As prompted by inlovewithnight, some thoughts on Anywhere But Here (AKA I'd rather be...):



How about you guys?