I still feel a bit below the weather. I've started the laundry, unpacked a bit, taken some anti-mucous medication, and made some coffee. Other objectives for today: goofing off, Dave Matthews Band concert, and buying lots and lots of kleenex. Guess who needs kleenex more than ever and is running out? That's right. Ms. Snifflehacklekinz here.

I am trying my first batch of beans from the Coffee Shop of Horrors, introduced to me by the lovely zorathenne and firewalker138 while marauding through the dealer's room. I have commemorated my first sips of this coffee. So far, it has a fantastic aroma and flavor. We'll see how it measures up to the buzz factor.

( Coffee Photos and a gratuitous pussy shot! )

I hope everyone has a grand day. I'll get some more photos from Dragoncon up later!

Today's been a delightful day, with the exception of me dropping off my cats to taogrl's abode. I miss 'em. But they'll be well tended to by their second Mom. Rounding up the cats this morning was rather comedic. Sascha pulled a "Houdini". He accomplished this by taking advantage of a paw-sized gap in the zipper door. I had both cats in the spacious carrier, and as I went to go fetch some things, I return to the pet carrier to see Sascha out, and looking at me in a guilty fashion. So, I praised him by saying in my cute pet voice, "Oh, you're a smart little boy! Yes, you are!" He paused to enjoy these commendations long enough for me to snag him and stuff him back in the container.

I'm glad to hear that Ernesto calmed down. I hope the rains don't do too much damage down yonder way.

Now I am getting ready for Dragoncon! I am going through the schedule and doing laundry.



I've got my google calendar for dragon con showing the sessions I think are interesting.
I'll add more once I finish reviewing the schedule:



Comments are screened, if you want me to get a hold of you during the con to meet up with you, comment with your cell number. Or, you can text message my cell phone (see my profile page).

I had to take my baby(The Prius) into the shop all day today. There was a defect in the steering column (or something to that affect--with me it's "blah blah blah car parts blah blah"), and it was also time for my 30,000 mile service. 18 months and 30,000 miles. Not bad.

Anyway, they gave me a free rental. A dadgum Toyota Corolla. Corollas are great cars, but man, the Prius is far more comfy. I wish they would give me a comparable car for the day instead of giving me the low end rental. Foo.

But, it's transportation, and that's cool.

The fact that an article was written that features Bobby Brown, Whitney Houston, Osama bin Laden and the phrase "sex slave" is a greater horror than anything else I care to imagine.

Home late after a night of Killer Bunnies with da Goddesses. A fine night.

Now for bed.

Tonight:

Dinner: A roasted garlic, mushroom and sausage pasta dish, with kamut spiral noodles (the italian word for this pasta style escapes me, and I'm too lazy to go find out), some red wine (Nerello Del Bastardo--with a name like Bastardo, it's gotta be good).

I've acquired a copy of xp pro, and I'm acquiring a copy of Boot camp. It's time to play with dual bootie action on the macbook.

I've created a Supergroup in my City of Villains game on the Victory Server. Mr. Existential and Ms. Objectivist have teamed up to create the Salon Supergroup. Their motto is "We think, therefore you must die." Yeah. Good times.

What happens when you stay up too late and get up 5 hours later? Not a whole hell of a lot. I'm about to try to crawl into the shower, however.

It's Friday. Unlike the band Cure, I'm not in love. But it's a fine and beautiful day. To all my friends who read this, may this be a great day for you, too. If it's not, I hope that better times are around the corner.

Wow, do you ever have those yawns where you feel like your jaw is going to break off at the joint and the top of your head will break off and roll away into the underside of the bed that time forgot? And there you sit, tired, missing the top two thirds of your head, which is covered in dust bunnies.

Okay, off to the shower.

Is it me, or does the dude in the Earthlink commercials that promises to institute safety controls to protect our children on the internet look like a child molester?

Maybe it's just me.

I felt tired today. Things went downhill when I had roast turkey for lunch. It must have had extra triptophan. Like pounds of it. I've been craving a hard nap-down ever since.

And now, it shall be mine.

But before I make that transition into the world of the unconscious, I must remark on the wisdom of sending Peacekeepers to a region where there is no peace. Namely Lebanon. You see, UN folks sent to Lebanon need to be peacemakers. Because there's no peace to be kept over there. And sadly, the fates thought something similar, for the "peacekeepers" were fired. Upon.
By the Israelis.

Mid-east stability. I'm lovin' it.

And finally, one last thing. This is my favorite quote from Ruby in "Cold Mountain". Why is it my favorite? Because it's so true. I see it happen so often. Even to me.

They call this war a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!'

So many times, we make our own weather.

Luckily for me, I like the rain. So I'll make my own weather, thank you very much, and say, "Fuck yeah! It's rrrrrainin'!"

Let the record reflect that while I love the rainy nights, I do not love Eddie Rabbit.

Oh, and one more thing, I just dropped a nebelwerfer of an order on Amazon.com. I had received some gift certificates at work for good works performed, and so I have promptly spent them.


My acquisitions:
DVDs:
-pre order of Veronica Mars, Season 2
-pre order of Battlestar Galactica, season 2.5
-Bram Stoker's Dracula (Why didn't I have this in my collection, yet?"
-Under Cover Brother (Again, why didn't I have this in my collection, yet? There's a story here, and it relates to this movie being one of the last movies Thomas and I watched before he died)

Music:
-I'm rounding out my Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer collection with three of their CDs:
*When I Go
*The Tanglewood Tree
*Flower of Avalon (Tracy put this together after Dave Carter died)

By the way, Richard Shindell's song "So Says the Whipoorwill" was a tribute to Dave Carter (I believe he's the mountaineer in this song):

So Says the Whippoorwill

from the album Vuelta

The change could happen anyday
So says the whippoorwill
She hangs around for the seeds I leave
Out on the windowsill
"Be-free-you-fool, be-free-you-fool"
She sings all afternoon
Then, as if to show me how it's done,
She leaps into the blue

The change could happen anyday
So say my true love's eyes
They see into my shadows
With their sweet, forgiving light
She smiles and says, Come on - let's go
Let's stroll the boulevard
It's such a shame to waste the night
Just sitting in the dark

The change could happen anyday
Or so says Father Brown
I listen for that still small voice
But I just can't make it out
Beneath the constant whispering
Of the devil that I know
But who would I be if I believed?
Who am I if I don't?

The change could happen anyday
So said the mountaineer
Before he turned to face his cliff
Without a trace of fear
Yodel-ay-hee-hoo, yodel-ay-hee-hoo
He sang right up until
He caught sight of the open blue
And became a whippoorwill
He caught sight of the open blue
And became a whippoorwill

Life is good. At least my life. I can't even phathom what it's like to live in Lebanon. My problems are so picayune and within my control, that I cannot possibly be miserable.

Today was a most pleasant day at work.

I continue to watch "Hex" on BBC. It is the Brit version of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but not nearly so clever. And they are doing a poor job of getting people who truly seem like high school students. Unless high school students are this jaded in England. They definitely look older than 19.

Though watching Thelma peruse a tome of the occult looking for carpet-munching demons was rather amusing.

Well hellooooo Livejournal!

Today wasnt' a bad day. It was busy, though. It went by so fast. I didn't get to the gym like I had hoped. But overall, it was a productive day. I have tomorrow off. I will get some relaxation in.

I'm a dirty old woman, and I'll explain why. There's a guy at work, he works in the Policy Service area. He's a chatty lad. He wants to get into IT so he seeks me out to talk to me whenever he can. Normally I'd find this annoying. But he's blond haired, blue eyed, an ex Marine, and an ice skater. Ladies and any gay men, please pause to reflect on the body of an ice skater. An ex Marine ice skater. I ended up gabbing with him for an hour.

I vaguely remember talking about the IT job market, Microsoft, the north west and who knows what else, but all I can remember seeing were those blue eyes and well sculpted arms. I had an out of body experience as my spirit went to go massage those arms. Good-ness!

And he's married. Why must the universe tease me so? I'm an honest, fair-minded woman. I don't need gorgeous unavailable men to talk my ear off after work.

I've hosed up my sleeping schedule a wee bit. I stayed up too late last night, and now I'm wide awake when I should be deep, deep asleep.

So, got printing working from my macbook. I think I had it working a week ago, but my macbook didn't want to admit it. Oh, I've named my laptop "Galadriel" in keeping with my Lord of the Rings network theme.

I also think I've figured out how to taogrl can manage her music collection via her ibook. with an external hard drive.

Someone asked me if I thought they were a failure tonight. It dawned on me how harsh people can be to each other and to themselves. I think such a question should never be asked by oneself. There should only be a statement. That statement is, "I will not be a failure." And then you work the issue from there. You will have failures. There will be setbacks. But one or many failures do not define you unless you let them define you.*

I am reminded of Batman Begins.

Alfred Pennyworth: Took quite a fall, didn't we, Master Bruce?
Thomas Wayne: And why do we fall? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.

There are things in life that are beyond your control, and such is life. But as long as you have a breath in your body, you can make a bad situation better. The process of believing that you can do this, and that you will dedicate yourself to this task will serve you well. A teacher of mine once told me, "you are who you pretend to be." You've heard others say, "fake it 'til you make it." There's something to be said for those phrases. However, they fall short when it comes to pretending to be omnipotent, or capable of sustained flight. There are some things positive attitudes cannot overcome.

So, I send my positive thoughts to those who feel like failures. I'll wager many folks have felt like one at one time or more in their lives. You're not, and that's that.


With regard to a project I'm working on, I think everything is proceeding as planned, now. I'll find out soon enough.

I think I'm sleepy enough to slumber, now.

*unless you do something really huge that gets written in the history books by someone who doesn't like you. Then, as far as posterity is concerned, you'll be a failure. Whatever doesn't make it into the time capsule doesn't count.