It Started with a Journal

Robb NO!!!

2014-01-12T00:41:50Z

Good news and bad news, but mostly good. The bad is that my cold symptoms are worse than ever. I always think, okay, I should be able to get over this in a few days, AND I NEVER DO. This is why I hate getting sick... it always seemed to linger and linger and linger. I always wake up with a sore throat because it gets so dry while I'm sleeping. When I'm awake, it doesn't feel so bad. Now it's all about the congestion. Ugh.

Now for the happy stuff.

1) My new computer has shipped!! It was originally estimated to ship *next Friday*, which is really rather ridiculous, but still, way to lower my expectations then overdeliver, HP! If only my friend akscully could learn from you.

2) I have tidied up my entire workspace at home in preparation for the new arrival. :D Long overdue, of course, but whatever. It got done finally.

3) One Direction’s ‘Happily’ gets an acoustic makeover and it’s ridiculously AMAZING - For once an over-the-top headline is actually quite accurate. It is ridiculously amazing. TY adelagia for letting me know this existed!

4) Another TY to akscully, for sharing this gifset:

Larry's face in #3...

And finally:

5) Three guys' reaction to the Red Wedding. I know, I know, this was ages ago on GoT, but I haven't seen this vid before and it's one of the best reaction vids I've seen. Usually the reaction vids are of girls who are freaking out while the guys in the room look all stone faced; these guys lay it all out there. LOL. It starts when the wedding itself begins, so the real "action" starts around the 5-minute mark.

"I don’t care. I don’t even care now. I’m completely dead inside."

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I have Theo chocolate and honey tea

2014-01-10T23:14:32Z

I've stayed home the last couple of days because I hate it when people go into work sick and spread their germs around. This morning I had to go to a meeting (my boss set it up weeks ago, and was adamant that we all had to be there IN PERSON), but drank a ton of water to keep the coughing at a minimum. My symptoms aren't too bad, all things considered, but I sound pretty terrible. Or as my coworker J. told me: "I hope you feel better. You sound like Kathleen Turner. Old, decrepit Kathleen Turner, not the young, hot one." -.-

While convalescing at home, I rewatched Arrow season 1. Oh, life is so hard! But I discovered something while watching it. I still love Stephen Amell/Oliver Queen, but all the stuff about Laurel, which was just barely tolerable the first time around, is now almost totally intolerable because the first nine episodes of season 2 have spoiled me so much. OLICITY 4EVAH!!! I don't even mind Laurel so much; I just can't stand Laurel/Oliver. The show opened with him having CHEATED ON HER WITH HER SISTER. THE SHIP IS DEAD.

/self-soothes

OK. I'm calm again.

In original writing news, I am working on two different stories right now. Story #1 is the young adult romance I've been working on for weeks, and have over 40k written. It stalled a week or so ago because I was writing this one scene and it just wasn't working, but I didn't know where I wanted to go with it or how to get it there, so it just. kept. happening, and I was really unhappy and discouraged. That's when I started working on story #2, which is based on some personal experiences (and which adelagia inspired me to start on), and has turned into a potential series with jade_okelani. You know. In theory. Anyway, I finally had a eureka moment this morning wrt story #1 and what to do with the scene I've been working on. It's going to mean scrapping almost all of it, which I really find hard to do in general, but in this case, if it'll get it moving again, I gladly pay the price.

Meanwhile, I can't wait for my new PC to arrive, which won't be for ages yet. :/ I miss doing everything that I normally would do on my desktop, plus writing on a tablet is for the birds, I tell ya.

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soooo hungry but must. post.

2014-01-08T22:10:04Z

Yeah, I'm sick. It's got to be just a cold because I don't have body aches or anything like that; if my throat wasn't sore I'd be feeling pretty normal.

I know where I got it, too. Monday night I had dinner with J. and R., who I haven't seen in over 15 years (CRAZY). We were pretty good friends in college, though we did have our moments of tension (such as when R. decided she couldn't be friends with me because I was too boy crazy. lOL! Which was probably true, but also, judgmental much?). I'm just really bad at keeping in touch with people. If they don't live within 30 minutes of me, or participate in fandom, it's just too hard to keep that friendship going. Anyway, J. and R. are really good friends, so when R. was called by one of her Jewish friends in Seattle to perform a bris on her new baby (R.'s a physician, not a mohel ;) ), R. came up to stay with J. and we all got together for dinner at the Vios pub (downstairs from Third Place Books!). Had a great time -- R. is exactly as I remembered her, though I think we are all more mature and have more perspective now (I hope) -- but J. mentioned that she had a sore throat. We all shared dessert and I thought R. and I avoided eating the parts J. touched but apparently I was not successful. GRRRRRRR.

I have purchased the new PC after days of hemming and hawing (akscully can attest to this). I ended up going with a compromise solution once I realized it was possible. I customized a base HP PC with a 4th-gen processor, building it exactly like the one I wanted with a 3rd-gen processor. Due to a coupon code I used from Chase Rewards I was able to make it cost (marginally) less than the 3rd-gen version, and with that being the case my brother said to opt for the 4th-gen, so that's what I did. Final specs:

- 4th-gen Intel Core i7-4770 processor quad-core [3.4GHz, 8MB Shared Cache]
- 16GB RAM (2 DIMM)
- 3TB hard drive
- Blu ray reader/multi-DVD burner
- Graphics card: 4GB Nvidia GeForce GT640

If I let myself think about it more I'd probably keep changing my mind, so I finally had to just make a decision and stick with it.

In ridiculous news, I had a bill from my healthcare provider for $7.88 moooooonths ago. I was going through all the dizzy spells and what not, so I put off paying for it (though I had already paid much-higher bills from earlier), because I figured other bills would be forthcoming and I could just pay them all at the same time. Except that did not happen. It was like the only bill for months, and I'm an utterly ridiculous person and kept forgetting about it, even after several reminders. And yes, I did keep thinking that I would have another bill at some point and could pay them together. Finally, after coming back from LA, I got a notice that the bill had been sent to a collection agency. And I also got another bill for $0.95. That's right, $0.95. So I called my healthcare provider and said that I wanted to pay for the $0.95, because clearly I needed to do it right away or it wouldn't be done, and I didn't want THAT to eventually be sent to the collection agency as well. That's when she found out about the $7.88 I was delinquent, and she said that she would pull it out from the collection agency so that my credit score wouldn't be affected (I didn't even THINK about that. Ridiculousness #2, if my credit score got negatively affected due to freaking $7.88), and I paid for that. Hopefully nothing will go wonky with the system or something and it doesn't actually affect my credit score. :/ Anyway, I said, well what about the $0.95, I don't want that to haunt me later. And she was like, "Oh, I think they've already forgiven that. I mean, they usually forgive really small amounts. I'm surprised the $7.88 got sent to the collection agency instead of just being forgiven." So ridiculousness #3, that if they regularly forgive small amounts, that that amount wasn't forgiven. HONESTLY.

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kind of a long ketchup

2014-01-07T22:57:45Z

Ugh... I think I'm getting sick. :( The only silver lining to this is that I'm going to get to go first in Pandemic.

What a bummer. For once, I managed to avoid getting sick the entire time I was in LA (which had the most amazing weather when I was there... mostly in the 70s, and one day it even got up to 81), I got my flu shot before I left... and now this. Ugh.

Also, I came back to crap that I have to deal with. :(

1) Before I left, my washing machine broke. It was set to a medium load but the sensor stopped working or whatever and it FLOODED my finished basement. So I had to deal with that before I left (drying the whole place out). The carpet needs to be replaced, so I have to do that, then I have to get a new washer (and probably dryer while I'm at it, and also a new water heater, which has been on the blink for months). Meanwhile, all the crap that was in the basement is now scattered throughout the rest of the house/garage, so it's a giant mess.

2) My PC, which was custom built by my brother years ago, has been acting wonky for awhile. But it had awesome specs at the time it was made, so it's still a really good machine (the graphics card is still way better than any typical graphics card in a regular pre-built machine made today), and despite its issues would never completely die, so I just kept using it. Well, after I came back from LA, it seems to have finally kicked it at last, so that needs to be replaced as well. I've been vacillating between these two options -- if you know computers, feel free to give me your input on whether you'd pick one over another! ( A tale of two PCs. )

While on vacation I saw American Hustle (which I did not like at ALL, though it had everything going for it, including a bunch of actors that I love) and The Wolf of Wall Street, which was spectacular. It barely felt 3 hours long, and it was so unexpectedly funny!!! Kudos, Leo and Martin, kudos.

Blahhhhhhhhh. Cheer me up! Watch Arrow and tell me how much you love it. Or at least check out my post about how much I love it and tell me you'll give it a shot. Here are some incentives!

I love when Felicity gets glammed up.

But I also love when she's in her normal ponytail and glasses. <3

More secret elevator missions plz.

IT girl turned first-aid specialist. :D

Perfect OTP is perfect.

Why are non-canon pairings always so much more interesting than canon pairings? :/

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It's like meat Jello.

2010-02-14T05:53:13Z

I have finally decided on and purchased a netbook. This is the one I ended up getting, at Newegg. I basically had to decide between that one and an Acer from Walmart. The latter was $50 more, but had the latest processor and a battery that lasted up to 8 hours. The one I got had the benefit of being pink and lighter (2.3 pounds!), but of course that's at the cost of a smaller battery, which only lasts up to 3 hours. Since I plan to use it mostly in places where I can plug it in, though, I decided it was an OK trade off for me. My dad is going to send me a spare 1gb RAM module so that I can run the machine at its max 2gb RAM. He's sent me like 5 different emails with links to YouTube videos and other written instructions on how to install it. I keep telling him I have it under control (I have built my own computer before, after all), but his latest email is like, "Since I may have given many and confusing pointers on how to install a memory module for your netbook, I thought I would recap them to make them clearer..." It's like 2 pages long. I wonder where I get my anal tendencies from.

It will be sweet though, once I have it and have the extra RAM safely installed... now I can write in bed! Like my dgficexchange story! And since it's running Windows XP, I may just keep it that way so that I can update my Shuffle on it (which I can't do on my Vista machine)!

The demi glace went well, in theory. It came out as I expected it to, but I haven't used any of it yet so I'm not 100% sure it's exactly right. Basically, I roasted the veal bones with some veggies, simmered the bones/veggies with some tomato paste for 20 hours, strained the resulting broth and stuck it in the fridge, put the bones back in the stockpot with fresh veggies and simmered another 20 hours to make veal stock, got rid of the fat from the first batch, put the original stock into another pot and reduced it to about 1 1/2 cups, ladled that into 2 ice cube trays, placed the trays into the fridge to make solid Jello-like cubes, then popped them out into freezer bags and stuck them into the freezer. The result is super-concentrated stock that I can use like boullion when I need it. I tasted a bit of the demi glace when it was in liquid form, and wow, is it super meaty in flavor (and sticky). Anyway, so from those 10 pounds of veal bones I ended up with 1 1/2 cups-ish of demi glace, and about 9 cups of veal stock. Which I think is pretty neat. Takes a long damn time, though.

Watched The Hurt Locker, which was good but not SUPER great or anything. It was a decent military film, a la Black Hawk Down. Don't know why it's getting such accolades, other than because Kathryn Bigelow is female. I mean, totally good for her and everything, but it wasn't like it was super visionary or stood out as being a really finely crafted film or anything. Maybe I just don't understand directing.

Well, as I suspected I don't really like the new work situation with the cubicles. I feel really self conscious about anything I do on my computer that's not work related, which does not help with stress levels. However, the good thing about having to be THERE way more often than I usually am is that it's forcing me not to be as much of a hermit, which I've realized is kind of a problem. I need a lot of me time, but maybe I have too much of it. I know other hermits out there can probably relate...

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