It Started with a Journal

One of my big pet peeves: people who rush into an elevator when it opens. By "rushing" I mean "can't even wait for the people already in it to get off." I work on the top floor. If you're waiting for the elevator on that floor and there are people inside when it opens, most likely they need to get off (it's rare for people to have gotten on the 'wrong' elevator going up when they need to go down), because there's nowhere else for them to go. Even on any other floor, pause before entering to make sure no one wants to get off. Because you know what? Even if you're an asshole who rushes into the elevator before anyone can even exit (which I find extremely rude), YOU'RE STILL NOT GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL THOSE PEOPLE HAVE LEFT. So now you're not just a rude asshole, you're also stupid. It saves you NO time to be that rude, so why do it?

I made a shepherd's pie recently, and S. liked it so much that I was 'forced' to make another one 2 days later. It's easy and delicious. I mean, what's not to like about ground beef mixed with veggies then topped with a layer of mashed potatoes and baked?

A week from Tuesday, I'll be boarding a plane for LA. How crazy is that? I guess it probably feels more crazy to me than to you. :)) It just seems so SOON. Officially I'm going to be on vacation for 2 weeks, until the end of December, then the first week of January I'll be working remotely from LA. But that'll be fine because then I can still have lunch/dinner with the folks down there, and it'll be sort of like a vacation without actually taking up any of my vacation hours. Though I do have a ton of those. I just have to remember to take Talis to the vet to get his health certificate after the 10th but before I leave, so that I can use the same certificate going and coming (otherwise it's another $70!).

I had my first physical therapy session for my back (from the car accident) on Monday. Hopefully it's going to go well. It's not like the pain is severe/debilitating, but it's there, and after hearing all the horror stories about people who have life-long problems with their backs after an accident I'm not taking any risks.

Re: Amanda Knox. A verdict in her trial is supposed to be announced in about an hour. Obviously I haven't heard everything the jury's heard, but from the details I've read I'd be surprised if she weren't guilty (whether there's actually enough hard evidence to convict her, I don't know). I mean, changing your story multiple times (in big ways) is just a terrible move, whether you're guilty or not. It makes you look guilty as hell. Motive and opportunity are also easily established with her. I do have to admit though that I might be biased because I just plain don't like her. She seems like a really selfish, stupid, and airheaded person. That doesn't make her a murderer, of course, but it sure doesn't make me bleed for her. Edit: She was found guilty. Her sentence was 26 years, which to me is weird. It's like the jury is saying, "We're pretty sure she's guilty." Because if she actually did kill her roommate, she and her ex-bf/accomplice deserve the maximum penalty, since it wasn't like, manslaughter. But if the jury had any doubt about whether or not they were guilty, the two should have been acquitted. So the 'short' prison sentence for murder seems weird to me. Of course, they're appealing, so it may not even be that eventually, anyway.

I'm sorta sad about Dollhouse being canceled. The show was progressively getting better. But I do think that the execution (whether Joss's fault or the network's) wasn't nearly as good as the concept. The worst part was unfortunately Eliza Dushku in the lead role. She was a serious disappointment.

Happy day-before-U.S.-T-Day!

I am so tired. Up late last night and then had to wake up early, bleh. And why was I up late? Playing WoW. That's right, I've gone back to the dark side. S. is constantly raiding and they were looking for a healer and I still have friends in the guild, so why not? I'm just going to take it far less seriously this time and also accept no positions of responsibility. That's really what ruined it for me last time. Another thing that's kind of fun is that I'm a disc priest now. :D I've never healed with a full disc spec, usually I went holy or holy/disc. It's taking some getting used to, but I actually like it. It's not THAT different from holy, though disc is less useful as a direct raid healer (it's more of a damage mitigator). Very good single target healer though (so good for MT, though possibly not as good as a holy pally, damn their plate-wearing hides). The biggest thing I'll have to get used to is that meters mean exactly squat for me now. So much of my usefulness comes in the form of, as I said, mitigation, so until meters start counting absorption rates I'll always be lowest on the healing meters. I'm fine w/ that as long as the guild realizes that, but it seems unlikely. People are and always will be obsessed with meters. Still, I'm having to think about my gear very differently than I did before. I used to stack spirit like crazy and now I wouldn't spit on it if it were on fire.

When my mom was here visiting she mentioned that she thought my hair was too dry. I was like, really? I mean, it's not brittle or anything, but it certainly isn't all satiny and silky like those models in shampoo commercials. She was like, yes, sometimes what I'll do is put olive oil in my hair, leave it on for 15-20 minutes, then shampoo and rinse like normal. So last night I tried it, thinking my hair was going to be awesome. It wasn't. It was the opposite of awesome. It was greasy and disgusting, even after shampooing. I knew there was something wrong when I was blow drying it and it still looked wet even way after it would normally have been dry... and that's because it WAS dry, it was just greasy! Ugh. Luckily after washing it again this morning my hair's back to normal. Though that could be because I made sure to use Big (by Lush), which is really good about removing oily deposits. I should probably use that less than I do because using it constantly is probably very harsh on my hair, which is probably what made my mom make the remark about my hair being dry in the first place.

My car's still in the shop. With the Thanksgiving break coming up it's probably not going to be done until mid to late next week. Sigh. I really, really miss my car. It's even less now that I miss the luxuries as it is that I miss something that's MINE, that has all my little knick knack stuff in it, that I don't have to think of as temporary, etc. One good piece of news (though, only relatively -- it's not as good as, say, not having been rear ended in the first place)... early on, I insisted that I wanted brand-new OEM parts (as in, genuine Lexus parts. They hit a car that had that, and were not going to get away with replacing with generic parts). Everything was agreed to except the bumper, in which they wanted to use a reconditioned part (but which was a Lexus part) rather than a new one. After the whole nightmare with the rental (oh yeah, I need to share the letter I wrote), I really didn't want to have to fight with Farmers about the stupid bumper, and yet I felt aggrieved. I mean, the accident was their fault, the difference between a new bumper and the reconditioned one was $150, and on a $6,000+ repair you want to quibble about $150?! Screw you. The auto body shop (which has been great) said that what they could do was to order the reconditioned part, try to find something wrong with it, and then say that they couldn't use it because of XYZ reason. Since I was/am sick of dealing with all this crap I said that was fine, because a bumper is a bumper, not an engine. Anyway, apparently the reconditioned part came and there *was* something wrong with it, like the tabs didn't fit my car or something, so the auto body shop ordered a brand-new OEM one for me like I had originally wanted. So HA, stupid insurance company.

I finally had my blood tested again, and while my cholesterol wasn't good, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting, either. Yay for that. I can't remember the specific numbers for each thing, but basically my LDL was a bit elevated, but my HDL was OK so that helped a bit. What's not so good is that apparently my thyroid was up again. This happened last year and when I got retested it was back down to normal... now it's up and I'm going to be tested again in 3 months and if it's still up my doctor's going to refer me to an endocrinologist. :/ Why is my body doing this to me, why. But speaking of my doctor, apparently she was selected by Seattle magazine as one of the 2009 doctors of the year! Coolness. Now I have to give a shout out to romanticalgirl for referring me to her. :D

I've been playing Professor Layton and the Curious Village on my DS. I loves me some puzzles! Some of them drive me inSANE though.

Going to have a very quiet Thanksgiving (as I do every year ... I hate flying so I can't imagine flying home for the holiday when I'm going to be going again in December). It's just going to be me, my cousin, and her 6-month-old baby. She didn't want to travel with him, so her husband/daughters are going to his family gathering w/o them. We're ordering one of those prepared meals from Whole Foods, which was (imho) hideously expensive, but neither of us could face the thought of cooking a big Tday meal just for the two of us.

Finally, I snagged a plane ticket for my December vacation for like, the best price ever. Seriously the best price I've ever paid to travel to SoCal -- $59/one way for a nonstop flight on Alaska. Usually it's more than double that. Of course, I'll have Talis with me so that's not all I'll have to pay. His flight in the cargo hold costs $100/one way, which is seriously highway robbery since it's not like he gets any special treatment and is basically treated like a piece of luggage. Grrrr airlines. Still, it's cheaper than boarding him or shipping him off separately.

Oh -- because I said I'd post this. The letter I wrote to Enterprise/the story of how they wronged me. It's really super long though, so if you're not interested in reading a bunch of ranting/complaining, do not click. ( Bad, Enterprise! Bad! )

Fuck you, 2009.

I've said it often enough, but really, this year was just one catastrophe after another. It's really only appropriate that I get rear ended before it's over. Otherwise, how could I claim that it's been the Worst Year Ever? There are still 2 months left in this horrible year, and I really dread what might happen in that time.

So tonight I had just gotten onto the freeway, trying to merge, when a backup of traffic caused me to slow down, then stop. Why was it backed up going southbound at 5:45pm? Who the hell knows. Because it's 2009, that's why. I looked in my rearview mirror to see a car coming at high speed toward me. I have just enough time to think, "Shit, they are so going to hit me," and brace myself before it collides, hard, with my car. It was going so fast there was no way it could have stopped in time to avoid me. &*#$!#)*&$

Of course, traffic cleared up after that IMMEDIATELY, because the situation obviously only presented itself to screw me over. But the good thing about that is that I didn't then hit anyone else in front of me. We pulled over to the shoulder -- the other driver was a 19-year-old girl. I called the police to come file a traffic incident report, she told the state trooper who showed up that her ribs had been hurting, so she was touching them and closing her eyes and that's why she hit me. He was like, yeah that is no excuse for not paying attention, I'm going to issue her a citation for speeding. He was like, the coolest police officer type I've ever encountered. Not that they are typically mean or anything, but he was just really nice and sympathetic and actually put me out of my thundercloud bad mood. (Example: Me, handing him documents - "Are you going to write up a traffic report?" Him, smiling - "No, I'm going to get in my car and make some papier-mâché with all this." Later on he was like, "I hope I wasn't too sarcastic. I sensed that you would smile if I said that.")

I already had an annual check up scheduled with my doctor for Thursday, but I'm going to try and move that up tomorrow if I can. I had a mild headache immediately after the accident, but that appears to be gone now ... however, the area between my shoulder blades now ache and I just want to make sure there's nothing seriously wrong that might be hidden.

I've called my insurance company and hers, and from what I understand of rear endings (yes, I am an expert now, given that this is my third time in like 6 years) the other company is going to have to pay for it all -- I will have such a fit if they don't accept liability (my own insurance company has already, of course, claimed 0% liability on this one and will fight w/ the other company if they try to be difficult). Still, even if it all goes smoothly, what a pain in the ass. Like I really needed this. Like anyone needs this. It's so time consuming and lame. Now I have to rent a car (the trooper had me drive away from the scene, but when I drive it you can strongly smell burning rubber, so that is not good), wait for the adjuster to contact me, call Lexus to get a recommended body shop for my car, possibly have to deal with bullshit involving refusal to admit liability or make me pay for this or that, etc. UGH.

The bitch of it was that I was on my way to pick S. up -- we were going to try out the P90X workout -- and he lives like 5 miles from me. One freeway exit. So when I was rear ended, I was halfway to my destination. Arrrghhh. Needless to say, we did not work out. We ended up going to Red Robin for dinner (having leftovers at home just seemed wrong after going through that), and two guys outside were like, "Wow, that sucks. Did it just happen? Wow, that REALLY sucks. Well, it's still a nice car." LOL. Well it's nice that even with my rear fender halfway hanging off, my car has a certain je ne sais quoi. *snort*

Is it wrong to enjoy going to get my car serviced? I'm driving a rather high-end car at the moment (a 30th birthday present to myself), and I don't know if I can ever go back, just from the service experience alone, lol. I needed to bring my car in today for its 5,000 mile service.

They have an espresso bar here, so I can have as many complimentary, freshly made lattes as I want. They have individually packaged biscotti and fresh fruit. And every so often they bake fresh cookies (yes, there's apparently an oven by the espresso bar), of which I have already eaten two. And then when you leave, they give you a small box of See's Candies.

Oh, and a computer/Internet access, which I am using to type up this entry while I wait.

Hmm I'm almost done with my latte. Time for another one...

Oh yeah, and I almost forgot to add: I outlined Portkey Party: The Sequel last night. It's not quite as ambitious as what I was originally planning, but given that I lost all my original notes and it's been so long since I even attempted to write fic, at this point I'm just happy to have some kind of roadmap.