Bulleted

• I had sort of a bad end to my week, so I am in FULL RELAXATION MODE right now, determined not to think about it.
• Yesterday I was about to finally finish Oblivion, as in I was in the huge battle fighting a million high-level daedric creatures and the Great Gate outside Bruma had just opened and I was about to go inside it and save the world... and the power went out! No lie. And don't ask me if I had saved, because I think you can guess. What a life.
  
• Cats are pissed at me. The cat food in their dish is the WRONG BRAND. Jolee especially is being a prima donna about it. How do I tell them we have to use it up, because Sarah paid for it? Suck it up, spoiled cats.
• Weather is nice here. The heat is finally starting to be bearable. And it is, what, almost October?
• I just paid off the last of the Ridiculous $1400 Touro Bill today via check. Finally.
• I would love to do National Novel Writing Month this year, but I think there's no way I can.
  
• Thanksgiving dinner is officially at my house again this year! Brother and parents have purchased their plane tickets. Hopefully I can do a better cooking job than last year. Not that it was terrible, but my cooking skills have nowhere to go but up.
• Re-watching Battlestar Galactica. We did Season One and half of Season 2 so far. Yes, I torrented it. Gasp. Not because I don't respect the show and don't fully plan to buy the DVD sets when I have fewer bills to pay... I promise I will buy it eventually... but, well, I guess I'm just a pirate.
• I got a spam e-mail from someone allegedly named "Constructive D. Wildebeests." And I can't bring myself to delete it, because. Well.
  
• I don't feel like I am very funny lately. And that makes me sad.
  

I Don't Want to Gooooooo

To the gym, that is. But it has been paid for, therefore I am going. Going to the gym is like writing for me. While I am doing the activity I enjoy it a lot. And I mean a lot. I stop, and I'm all pumped up. "Oh yeah, I'm so good! I should do this all the time! Whoo!" And, similarly, I also enjoy having written and having gone to the gym. Afterwards, when I'm lazing about gloating about how awesome I am. But actually pulling myself out the door? Ugh. It's hot out and I am really close to beating Oblivion, and I am all planned for tomorrow and have barely anything to do tonight except focus on me, me, me.

So yeah. Did I mention I've rejoined the Tulane gym?

Off to commune with undergrads in the land of sweat...

Because Everyone Needs

... a toilet that attaches to your trailer hitch. No, really. I, of course, get a huge kick out of stuff like this. Except I'm a little disappointed with the link you'll see if you scroll way down to the bottom. It says, "Click here for an interview with GOD." I was totally expecting a heartfelt testimonial from God about how he enjoys taking dumps off the back of his pickup truck.

I am quite crestfallen.

Haiku

Why oh why is my
weekend almost over. I
need more Battlestar.

Thing That Is Not a Thing Update...

The Thing is in the Gulf, but has yet to spin up into anything big. Coastal Flood Watch in effect. Was asked to unplug all cords and move stuff away from the door and off the floor. The weather outside today was quite cool, breezy, and gorgeous, however.

SPECIAL TROPICAL DISTURBANCE STATEMENT
NWS TPC/NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER MIAMI FL
400 PM EDT THU SEP 20 2007

THERE ARE NO INDICATIONS YET THAT THE LOW HAS BEGUN TO ACQUIRE TROPICAL
CHARACTERISTICS... ALL INTERESTS ALONG THE NORTHERN GULF COAST SHOULD MONITOR
THE PROGRESS OF THIS SYSTEM.

The most impacted areas by the high tides will be outside of the hurricane levee protection system in Plaquemines, lower St. Bernard parish and in low lying areas of coastal Mississippi. The Weather Service says a few locations could become inaccessible at high tide.

Oh, see, no. Hell no.

This interest along the Northern Gulf Coast will be monitoring the system. After I get back from kickball.

BUT WILL...

... the Tropical Thing over Florida cross into the Gulf in time to prevent me from having to go to work on Friday? That is all I want to know. Otherwise it has no relevance to me. If it is just going to arrive after Friday and rain and make my weekend suck, then it needn't bother coming here. If it wants to come Friday, though... well, then we can talk. Thank you.

http://www.nola.com/hurricane/index.ssf/2007/09/system_may_cross_florida_into.html

"He Was the First Man Among Us"

Robert Jordan, mega-bestselling author of the Wheel of Time series, has passed away at age 58.

Wow. I feel guilty about all those jokes I made about how the Wheel of Time never ends. Jordan began the series in 1990, and was working on what was supposed to be the twelfth and final volume when he died yesterday. I was aware that he'd been diagnosed with a blood disease, but I always liked to think he'd manage to finish it.

I know that, according to his blog (the server is, understandably, experiencing difficulties due to traffic, so it might take a couple of tries), he had made audio tapes and outlines. Last weekend he told his family members the ending. So it seems as if the book will be written after all... by someone. But he will never get the chance to finish his life's work.

I am actually quite upset about this. Sure, I'd criticized the books in recent years, but so have lots of people. But that doesn't change the fact that his books were my introduction to fantasy. I can't really think of my high school reading years without remembering the Wheel of Time. My dad and I would compete to be the first one to buy the new book when it came out. I think we've been reading since about 1994. That's thirteen years.

I can't help thinking that the worst part about it is him not getting to finish what had become the definitive work of his career (and arguably the definitive high fantasy work of the 1990's). Frankly, it terrifies me on a personal level, more than I expected. I'm always putting off writing, pushing it back. This isn't the time to go for the novel, I'm too busy working to write, I've still got plenty of time. Time, time, time.

But it's all bullshit, isn't it? I know many of Robert Jordan's millions of readers will spend this evening flipping through one of his books, in memoriam. It's a worthy thing to do. But not for me.

I will be writing.

Memento mori...

Taking Out the Cat Poo

Me (cleaning out the cat box while the Emmy awards are on TV: I don't know why I'm even watching this, because NO good shows are even nominated and it's a huge disgrace.
Mike: Because you're taking out the poo. Which is about all the Emmys are good for.
Me: Exactly.

WHAT ARE these random network shows that get nominated? WHAT ARE they?

Cell Broken

My cell is apparently broken. It's been that way since last Friday. I'm seeing about getting a new one, but please e-mail instead of calling. My phone is showing no bars and all my calls are failing even though there is reception in the area. No, they didn't turn it off because I didn't pay the bill. It's just not working all of a sudden.

ETA: OK, so unscrewed antenna, took phone apart, put it back together, whacked it with my hand, turned it back on, and it's working. But I just ordered a nice free new one anyway, because it's been over two years. And I am upgrading to the $39.99 "slightly less cheapskate" plan so I will never have to EVER go over my minutes again like I did this month. Seriously. You do not even want to begin to know about my phone issues right now.

And I had about 500 important calls while it was dead, and I am in the depths of despair trying to figure out how to catch up on all my business without going over my minutes again. SO E-MAIL.

On "Head Six" and Other BSG "Head" People

Quoth the internet rumor mill:

"Say good-bye to the Six in Baltar's head," a source told SyFy Portal's Michael Hinman. "As much as we like Baltar having this controlling figure literally in his head, we couldn't keep it up forever."

...Who are these personas? The source won't say, but there has been a lot of speculation that they are all tied into the Leoben (Callum Keith Rennie) that Kara Thrace (Katee Sackhoff) saw in her "death" episode, "Maelstrom."

Of course, none of this has been confirmed by SciFi Channel or anyone else -- and is subject to change before the actual episodes air, so treat it as you would any rumor.

I stated this exact theory Sunday night. Just ask Sweetie. Was watching an earlier Baltar/Head Six episode, and it just occurred to me that that one line is probably the key to the whole thing.

"You're not Leoben," says Kara to the Leoben in her head.
"I never said I was."

I never thought they were chips. Before Season 3 I thought they were manifestations of Baltar's guilt and wacked-out psyche. Now I think not. But I still don't think they're gods, either. I personally believe they're from the future. All this has happened before and all of it will happen again.

But maybe I've been watching too much Star Trek: Enterprise...

Google Stalking

I begin to be suspicious of Google.

Do you ever get the feeling G-Mail knows everything about you? I mean, technically, it's a very intelligent way to provide a free service supported by advertising. I assume it scans my e-mails for keywords, and then pops up ads based on what it thinks I would be interested in. A couple months ago, hockey. Coffee. Get a lot of ads and articles having to do with coffee. Battlestar Galactica DVDs. Writers' resources. Ever since I bought that plane ticket to Syracuse last month, I've gotten a couple ads for shopping there. Today, steampunk.

Like, whoa. I feel as if I'm being stalked by my e-mail.

I Know You Want My Fruity Oaty Bar T-Shirt...

It's all right. You can admit it. I go through spurts of internet T-shirt collection. This appears to be one of them. There are SO MANY geeky yet cute T-shirts.

I love the internet. Sometimes I wish I could actually, like, crawl into the tubes and LIVE IN the internet instead of in real life. (But not really. The view's not great and you'd never get fresh air. And you'd get fat from having no exercise. But the shopping would be great.)

This shirt is especially fun because you don't even have to know what it's about-- it just looks like one of those retro tees. FYI, though, in the movie Serenity, the big bad government plays this wacky Japanese-inspired commercial for Fruity Oaty Bars, which has a subliminal message hidden inside that causes one character to go berserk and knock out an entire bar full of people. So, ya know, if looking at my boobs causes a sudden desire to kill people, now you know why.

The Harry Potter Drinking Game

Mike came up with it last weekend whilst we were watching Chamber of Secrets. It is simple and fun. And it has only one rule.

Take a drink whenever Ron makes this face.

Eddies in the Space Time Continuum

I am trying to make a vocab practice sheet, but I can't get past my inner giggling at the fact that one of the words this week is "eddies." Every time I see it, like during class when I am supposed to be doing something entirely different, the beginning chapter of Life, the Universe and Everything runs over and over in my head. You know,

"Eddies," said Ford, "in the space-time continuum."

"Ah," nodded Arthur, "is he. Is he." He pushed his hands into the pockets of his dressing gown and looked knowledgeably into the distance.

"What?" said Ford.

"Er, who," said Arthur, "is Eddy, then, exactly, then?"

"There seem... to be some pools... of instability... in the fabric of space-time."

"Ah, that."

"Yes, that."

"And it's done what?"

"It," said Ford, "has developed pools of instability."

"Has it."

"It has."


Eddies... in the space-time continuum. Is he, now. And I can't explain it because the kids won't get the joke. So I am going to quietly snort over it here.

Oh Look, Tomorrow's Wednesday

And the week just started! Now that's what I like to see. Don't misunderstand me... I don't hate my job. But it is a new job, and I am putting a LOT of time into it right now. It's much less "me" time than I've been used to. The three day weekend felt soooo short. This might be because I spent most of it sitting in front of Oblivion (I am getting to that point where I just think, "I WILL beat this game, dammit," because it has been so long and I'm still playing and it's beginning to drive me crazy.)

I also read some... hung out with a cocktail and felt like an adult human being... it was good. As luck would have it, since this week is short, I don't have much planning to do. That should give me more time than I've been used to lately. I think it will get better as the weeks roll on. New jobs are very overwhelming, though. Plus I ran up my phone bill to $100 with all my panicky phone calls... I guess I underestimated the amount of outside adult support calls I would need in a workplace where the people around me's idea of fun is making things out of tissues, Germ-X, and rubber bands, and flinging them at each other.

I just kept getting in my car and needing to talk to someone mature.

Oblivo-Stats

Yes, I have game ADD. Back to Oblivion with my first character to beat the Fighter's Guild today. And I figured if you've done one actual useful thing in the game, why not do another? So I went and killed that Umbra bitch. And now my sword matches my outfit.

I made a list of some truly frightening stats on this character.

Name: Thayet
Race: Redguard
Birthsign: The Thief
Class: Custom
Level: 29

Top Skills: Blade 101, Light Armor 100, Acrobatics 99, Sneak 96
Top Attributes: Strength 100, Agility 100, Speed 100

Hours Played: 158 (eek)
Items Stolen: 7575 (heh)
Assaults: 101
Murders: 6
Horses Stolen: 3
Locks Picked: 690
Oblivion Gates Shut: 11 (I told you I hate them)
Gold: 172,000

Thayet is the Master of the Fighters' Guild, the Grey Fox, and the Arena Grand Champion.

Really, the frightening part of this is the 158 hours without getting close to actually beating the game.

Media of My Weekend

Books of my Weekend (procured as a present to myself at Barnes & Noble yesterday on the way home from the West Bank):

Sorcery and Cecilia, or The Enchanted Chocolate Pot, by Patricia C. Wrede and Caroline Stevermer

The Historian, by Elizabeth Kostova

Kushiel's Chosen, by Jacqueline Carey

The Ghost Orchid, by Carol Goodman

Netflix of my Weekend:

Star Trek: Enterprise Season S Disc 5

Games of my Weekend:

The Longest Journey

O-Bliv: Shivering Isles (of course)