sarea: (Default)
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.
sarea: (Default)
Whenever I make mayo, I almost always end up making way more than I need. The homemade variety doesn't keep nearly as well as store bought (1 week vs months if not years), so there's really no sense in making a lot, especially as I don't generally eat a lot of it to begin with. But, the cycle goes like this. I decide that I am going to make mayo the old-fashioned way, with a bowl and a wire whisk. All it takes is patience and a good whisking arm. I'm okay for maybe the first 10 drops of oil. Then my whisking arm starts to get tired. I drizzle more oil into the mixture than I should. The arm holding the measuring cup at a tense angle to control the amount of oil starts to cramp. I think, it should be safe now to add oil in a thin stream instead of drops. I adjust my cramped arms. Rinse and repeat. I end up with a semi-emulsified, not-very-mayo-like substance. That's when I have to drag out the food processor -- which I had wanted to avoid the "work" of washing -- and make a new batch of mayo. The food processor makes it happen practically by magic, with very little effort. Once I have creamy, perfect mayo, I then add in the "mayo" (aka, semi-emulsified crap) that I tried to make by hand. Because if you didn't already know, if you have perfectly emulsified mayo, you can add mayo-gone-wrong to it and it will magically make it good. However, this is why I always end up with more than I need. Sigh.

Quiet Thanksgiving, as planned. When I picked up our Whole Foods meal, it turned out that they didn't have a 6-8lb turkey as we were supposed to get, so they gave us a 10lb one. For 2 people that is simply ridiculous, lol. Also, witness our naivete: WF asked that we specify a time that we would be going to pick up the meal; my cousin chose 11:30am. We both figured that we could have it for lunch AND dinner. Neither of us knew or realized that "fully cooked" doesn't mean "hot." We still ended up having to rub a paste (provided) over the turkey and baking it for over an hour. We also had to heat up the various veggies and accompaniments, so we didn't actually end up eating until much later than we'd originally planned. I mean, still easier than having to cook everything from scratch and less clean up involved, but yeah. Now I know.

I did no Black Friday shopping this year. I was, however, very lame. Just before midnight the night before BF, I read [profile] romanticalgirl's LJ entry where she talked about her BF plans. I felt pretty wide awake and had been looking for an excuse to do BF, so I emailed her and asked if I could tag along. She nicely said yes. She planned to start at 2am. We emailed back and forth for a bit and I was still excited. Then, just as I was preparing to leave the house a bit before 1:30am, I felt like I'd been hit by a sledgehammer. A wave of tiredness came over me and I realized that there was no way in hell I would be able to stay awake much longer without becoming Ms. Grouchy Pants and/or wanting to sleep in the car. So I told L. that I was lame and was not going after all. Yes, I felt really, really lame. I generally don't like to cancel plans once I've made them, but I just knew I was going to be terrible company. That'll also teach me to make spontaneous middle-of-the-night decisions about going out. Don't I know yet that those days are long over for me? :P

I ended up sleeping until 12:30pm. When I went to bed I had thought to myself that I would just go BF shopping at a more "normal" hour, say 8 or 9am, and maybe still get a couple of good deals on things. Given the time I woke up, I didn't even bother to go to any stores. Talk about conking out, sheesh. I think I have a low-grade something or other, because the last few days before that my throat was feeling funny/sore in the mornings, and then the major sleepathon happened.

My doctor ran a vitamin D test along w/ my cholesterol test and to no one's surprise, I'm low. It's a problem for basically everyone who lives in this sunshine-forsaken state. I'd been taking 250 IU/day along w/ my calcium supplement, but my doctor wants me to take 1,000 IU/day. I ended up getting what my cousin gets, Carlson Ddrops. It's in liquid form and 1 drop of it provides 1,000 IU. I usually put it on some food or in my coffee. It tastes like nothing. You'd think "a drop of sunshine" would taste like something. So far I've been pretty good about remembering if I've taken it that day, but I'm sure one of these days I'll forget and end up giving myself a whole lotta vitamin D. Luckily that shouldn't do me any harm. I don't think. Also, I'm going to see a physical therapist tomorrow for a consult re: my back soreness from the accident. AND I've decided not to be an ostrich and have scheduled for a consult w/ an endocrinologist. My cousin points out that I've already had 2 abnormal test results, I'm going to have to see one at some point or another, so might as well start the battery of tests now.

The garden has shown very little change. My cousin's gardeners have told her that winter is a verrrrrry slow growing season so I shouldn't be concerned. The cabbage looks leafier and the lettuce has pretty much died, but otherwise everything's about the same. There were a couple of warm ("warm") days a few weeks back, and that apparently made one of the bok choi plants bolt. So I guess they really ARE cold-weather plants, because it was so not warm; the sun just came out, that's all. I removed all the flowers, but I probably should have just let it go to seed. Now it's useless. Sigh.

Last night I beat Professor Layton and the Curious Village. The games/brain teasers are fun, but the conclusion was a bit anti-climactic. I thought Flora was annoying. Only thing left is that there are supposed to be 120 puzzles, but I've only found 115, and of those, I still haven't figured out 4 of them. They are annoying me. A lot.

At the moment I'm making the custard for mint ice cream. It's really way too cold to be making or eating ice cream, but some people simply will not be dissuaded.

Edit: Oh, for those of you who were interested, this was Enterprise's response to my complaint letter: The funny. )
sarea: (puppet angel working)
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 [profile] 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! )

Catch up

Nov. 20th, 2009 12:18 pm
sarea: (Default)
Still in the throes of post-accident stress and frustration. Still experiencing occasional soreness in my back, especially by my left shoulder blade. Had a really crappy rental experience with Enterprise -- until last year I had no problems with them whatsoever -- and am now with Hertz. I will be writing them a letter that I will share with all you fine folks so I don't have to write about the specifics multiple times. :D

I really, really, really miss my car. I didn't realize how accustomed I'd become to all the little amenities until they were gone, from big things like my in-dash navigation to little things like being able to raise and lower the passenger-side window with one click. I am considering replacing my car with a hybrid (though one with many of the amenities I've mentioned) and am planning to test drive a couple this weekend.

Had the best dinner with [profile] corianderstem the other night at the Dahlia Lounge. We were going for the 3-for-$30, but ended up doing something slightly different instead. My cousin had left me a voicemail that I got right before entering the restaurant to say that it's Dahlia's 20th Anniversary, so if you walk in and say, "Happy 20th anniversary, Dahlia!" the first 20 people get that day's prize free (they do something different every day, for a month). The day we went happened to be "Tom's favorite duck dinner free." (Tom being Tom Douglas, famous Seattle chef and owner of the Dahlia Lounge.) This was lucky because originally we were going to go on Thursday, and Thursday's prize was 50% off the wine tab, which would have been useless to me personally as I'm not a wine drinker. Anyway, the 5-spiced duck was FANTASTIC, so good. It was served over a bed of spicy chopped Brussels sprouts with acorn squash and pear. (My vegetarian friend J. had wanted to try Dahlia also, but I had already made plans with A., and it's probably a good thing since she wouldn't have eaten the duck!) We both started with their grilled bread salad, which was also out of this world. For dessert I had the famous triple-cream coconut pie (excellent but for the coconut shavings, which I'm not fond of in general) and A. had the creme caramel, which was also really good. As we were leaving they gave us a package of 2 big chocolate chip cookies for the road (probably left over from when the Dahlia Bakery, right next door, closed for the day) -- and the cookies were delish also!! I'm really fussy about cookies, so it's actually amazing to me how much I liked it. I ate half and gave the other half to S., who also isn't a big fan of chocolate chip cookies, but said, when he was done, "That cookie wasn't big enough."

Anyway, they're still doing giveaways for the month of November, as well as the 3-for-$30, so I would go back in a heartbeat! Only disappointing thing was that the Golden Ticket prize that night (brunch for 4 at Lola, Tom's mediterranean-themed restaurant) was not won by me or A. LOL. But after the great experience we had, getting to win that might have been too much.

Wow that the UC Regents are hiking tuition fees 35%. Not that I actually think it's a bad or unfair idea. But thank goodness when I went to UCLA it wasn't as high as that!

Edit: Oops, also meant to say -- A., you were right, Lady Gaga's vid for "Bad Romance" is awesome.

Also, music related ... I think "Backspacer" might be Pearl Jam's best album since "Ten." I loooooooooove "Just Breathe."
sarea: (Default)
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*
sarea: (Default)
I'm trying out a new lipstick. I've never been into pink, it usually makes me look sallow (whereas on SMG as Buffy it's so cute), but this one actually looks decent. It's called "Candy" from Estee Lauder.

Speaking of cosmetics and frivolity, I had the craziest/funnest/shallowest dream ever last night. I finished PD10, which I enjoyed a lot, so I know why it was on my brain. Anyway, I dreamed that I was with Lana Weinberger (from PD) and Blair Waldorf (from Gossip Girl), and after doing a bunch of shopping they took me to their hair stylist and she was going to give me a proper cut that would flatter my face. (I've always wanted to do that -- get some super talented hair stylist to show me what style I should have, then maintain it with a more affordable stylist.) I was sad because she had just started working on my hair when I woke up.

So I went to the doctor yesterday... )

I recently switched from Liberty Mutual to Allstate for my car insurance and so far I'm pretty happy. Not only do I have a lower premium, but I also get cash back every 6 months if I am accident-free in that time period. It's pretty cool.

I have some Facebook questions, for those of you who have answers:

1. Is there a way to have different security groups, like LJ?
2. It's not really an online journal, right, so there's really nowhere to post 'thoughts' or anything like that? You just kind of use the status message as the basis for conversations? Or posting pictures or whatever? And you just write on that person's 'wall' and they write on yours?
3. When someone finds you in the public system, is there a way for them to know how active you are (like they can see the last time you posted something, etc.)? I'm wondering if I can just refuse to friend certain people (like coworkers), but just let them believe that I'm not an active Facebooker (which right now, I'm not).
4. Once you've friended someone, there's no way to defriend them without them knowing and being insulted right, unless it's a mutual thing? I guess this is where the security groups question comes in also, because sometimes I don't want certain people knowing certain things, but it seems that once they're my friend, it can't be helped.

Right now I feel very limited by Facebook since it's with my real name and have real life people who know it. I like, can't post anything.
sarea: (veronica mars)
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.

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