Category Archives: Life

Beware the outage

Blurbs

In which this site is moving.

There’s a server co-located in a data center somewhere in California, and it’s been acting weird.

Every bit of hardware in it has been replaced except for the hard drive itself, and it still hangs and needs to be rebooted at least once a day.

That server is the server goblinbox.com lives on. (And Chaos’ RV Blog, and gibblesnix.com, and beerafraid.com too, for that matter.)

It has been decided to replace the hard drive.

What this means is that goblinbox (and Chaos’ RV Blog, and gibblesnix.com, and beerafraid.com) will be down for a bit while everything is migrated from the old drive to the new one, and there may be some wonkiness while we get everything situated.

But never fear! It’ll all be fine soon. *mwah!*

Stuff to cover with my GP. When I get one.

Health, , , , , ,

In which I make a list.

Since I’m in the second half now, I should start establishing baselines. Don’t you think that’s wise? I haven’t had a regular doctor since I had a pediatrician, so no one really knows what typical or normal readings are for me.

I’ve decided to choose a GP more or less at random and go in for a meet-and-greet and suffer through a basic checkup. Because when I’m sitting in front of a doctor I always feel fine and I forget all the things I wanted to cover, I’ve decided to make a list so I can get everything on the table in the six-to-twelve minutes of actual facetime I’ll get:

Continue reading Stuff to cover with my GP. When I get one. →

Music and media.

Blurbs, , , , , ,

In which I gig and consume media.

Friday night I waited for nearly an hour for my bro to finish an instance in WoW, then we went to Rosita’s for dinner. Mmm, chile rellenos!

I went to bed early Friday night because I was tired from going out Wednesday and Thursday.

Saturday I woke up at nine. It really pissed me off, so I went back to sleep until eleven. I got my nails done Saturday afternoon. (My nail tech lady told me my skin looked bad and that I needed to cut back on the caffeine and cigs and drink more water. I was all, ‘Uh, okay lady. Will do.’)

After my manicure I went to meet Lannie and Becca at the bar. Not long after arriving I got a call from RB. He said, “Wanna make fifty bucks?” Of course I did!

Basel Wedding Gig

I drove out to Basel Cellars and sat in with the Coyote Kings, who were playing for a wedding reception. The food was good, the wine was free, and at the end of the night one of the caterers gave me an entire cheesecake.

Fifty bucks and a cheesecake for singing nine songs? Good deal!

Sunday I laid around like a slug. I watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind on Netflix. (Such a great movie! I’d never seen it before. Loved it.) I repainted my nails because I just couldn’t hack the very whorish dark color I’d chosen at the salon.

I finished reading Ghost Sunday night, even though the book pissed me off endlessly. I realize it’s fiction and therefore fantasy, but Jesus H Christ! I do NOT like gang rape, torture, and murder so graphically portrayed in my fiction… particularly not when both the main character and the author obviously find it sexually arousing! Gah! Sci-fi should not have smut in it! Well, more specifically: I don’t actually mind smut in my sci-fi, but I prefer it not to be pathological smut. I like my smut consensual, thank you very much.

There’s a scene where a group of naked chained co-eds are forced to watch the gang rape, torture, and murder of a couple of their number. Then when the good guys show up, one of them – the good guys, I mean – gives a speech about how not all men are assholes and the girls had better not turn into dick-slicing lesbians who won’t give head.

WTF?! In which universe is such a speech even remotely acceptable when delivered to a room full of naked women, two or three of whom were tortured to death?!?!

Sure, I’m against militant feminists as much as any woman can be. But I’m ALSO against idiots militant masculinists. Let’s all be humanists, shall we?

I bought the next book in the series but I’m not gonna read it. Not if there’s going to be such nasty misogynistic rape-fueled sex in between super awesome action scenes. Ugh.

Other random items: ~My dog is awesome. ~G’ma made a really delicious salad thing for dinner last night, composed of a bed of iceberg, diced beefsteak tomatoes, and a mayo dressing mixed with cucumbers on top. ~I’m drinking a LOT of water today. ~I have a zit on my nose, even though I’m far too old for such nonsense. ~It doesn’t matter how much I diet and exercise, I am apparently never going to have a waist ever again. ~I’ll be sitting in with the Kings at their album release party at Sapolil‘s tasting room next Saturday night. ~My boss left a pile of mail on my desk and left town, and I’m only vaguely aware of what I’m supposed to do with it. ~I shot a roll through one of my Argus C3s this weekend and can’t wait to get it developed.

The Brick in the truck

Heighth, width, depth.

Blurbs,

In which the sci-fi I’m reading totally fucking sucks, but I was lying in bed trying to watch a vid the other day and got irritated with the fact that I had to have my head upright in order to feel comfortable.

Being a creature from the bottom of a gravity well means that in order to think about something I must first be able to orient it. This is an awful waste of space.

I wonder what a truly 3-dimensional thought process would feel like. Not even sea creatures are free of up-versus-down.

The perils of free time.

Admissions, ,

In which I am totally out of condition for the kapha Olympics.

Took myself out for awesome chile rellenos at Rosita’s on Friday night. Got my hair done on Saturday morning. Went out for sushi with Teh [Now Ex] BF on Saturday night. Did laundry Sunday and watched a vid. Walked the dog a couple times.

I took three naps.

I inadvertently got so damned rested that I woke up at 5:30 this morning and never went back to sleep. I got up, meditated, ate breakfast, showered, shaved, dried and straightened my hair, put on makeup, walked the dog, packed a bento, AND had time to stop for coffee on the way to work!

FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

I feel dirty. This is just like being a morning person, and I don’t like it. Not one bit.

I really hope they move me to an 11 to 8 schedule or something because this just sucks ass. Productivity! In the morning! *shudder*

Hump day: just an excuse to say "hump."

Spiritual, Travel, Work

In which I do go on about vacation and Amma and work.

I will go on vacation in nine days. NINE DAYS. I can’t remember the last time I needed a vacation so very badly.

I can’t wait to zip up my rolly case and go to the airport. I can’t wait to get on the plane and turn off my electronic devices. I can’t wait for my Salt Lake City layover.

I can’t wait to check in to the Hyatt Regency at DFW and check out the hotel room and the hotel bed and the hotel shower. I can’t wait to wake up in another town with four days of vacation ahead of me, and get dressed in my whites and brush my teeth in the shiny hotel sink and take the elevator down to the program hall.

I can’t wait see Mother. I can’t wait to meditate near Her. I can’t wait to get darshan. I can’t wait to eat Indian snacks like pakoras and idli & sambar. I can’t wait for Devi Bhava.

I can’t wait to eat genuine Tex-Mex like a total freakin’ tourist.

In short, I can’t wait to get the fuck out of town for a few days.

…
This afternoon my employer began the installation of a web cam in the office. It will hang from the ceiling, and is a model that can be swiveled remotely to view all areas. It has audio pickups.

There was a cam here when I started. It’s been moved into another room, and as far as I know has never been online during my employment.

I have no idea why a camera should need to be installed at all, since the office can already be remotely observed a variety of ways. Nonetheless, there it is, a camera which really can’t have any purpose other than to allow members of management to observe employees.

When I worked at LISCO there were web cams there, but they existed so that people could look at equipment, not the other way around. Why on earth would you want to look at people sitting at desks staring at monitors?

The whole thing’s just creepy.

…
The day before yesterday I clocked a very satisfying 6.25 hours on the phone, but my average phone time lately is hovering around four hours per day.

To fill up the unused time I’ve been given busy-work: something loosely identified as “market research” (involving visiting phone book web pages and counting the number of hotels in particular towns), and a list of roughly 250 dial-up customers I have to call and switch to different access numbers.

Why, yes, thank you for asking: I actually did have a real job once, with root on many servers, where I had to understand subnetting and do network troubleshooting and hang out in data centers and go to customer prems and often had plug ends and jumpers and screws and cool stuff in my pockets.

But now? Now I’m calling dial-up customers to wheedle them into letting me walk them through changing to a new access number.

…
Have I mentioned that I’m really looking forward to the renewal of my upcoming vacation?

Update: The webcam is mounted on a wall pointing at nothing, and it’s made by the same company that makes the rest of the inventory so it’s probably just a test model. Surveillance fail!

Toad-like Lump

Admissions

In which I accomplish virtually nothing whatsoever.

I had plans to get some shit done this weekend, but The Curseâ„¢ arrived and I decided to be lazy instead.

I watched a bunch of classic Doctor Who. I ate hash browns with gravy, a weird and completely non-nutritious dish I get occasional cravings for. I knitted. I made a big mess on my bedroom floor with all my knitting stuff:

Digging through my stash

I napped. I walked the dog. There was a trip with Teh BF to Berny’s Tacos for dinner at some point.

I tried on one of my saris, but didn’t manage to bust out the ironing board and sewing machine to alter it as I’d meant to do. Right now the sari in question is in a big messy pile, and it still has no pleats and no hem.

I did do some yoga on Saturday, and I did meditate.

I did not work on the bento article for the paper, nor did I make and photograph any bentos for said article.

I did not fill up my cute set of travel bottles with shampoo, conditioner, moisturizer, or what have you, in preparation for Dallas on the 26th.

I did not launder anything.

I did not bathe. I did not shave my legs. I did pluck my eyebrows, though… at one in the morning, because I’d slept in and napped and couldn’t sleep.

The band guy did not call, and I did not go to an audition.

The slovenliness even seeped into the work week, because even though I’m expecting a package I did not go to the post office today.

Conclusion: I did not do more than I did do.

It's Thursday.

Blurbs

In which it’s all good news.

Okay, so obviously none of you read, care about software, or have an iThing, so you were not in the least interested in the last post. (At least Shenry was kind enough to comment anyway.) But guess what? I have something interesting to share!

I’ve been asked to write an article about bento for the U-B! Whoo hoo! AND I may be going to a rehearsal/tryout with a new band!

Most importantly, though, the Dallas trip is only two weeks and a wake-up away. Yay, vaction! Yay, Amma!

Software Review: Stanza

Blurbs

In which I’m finally truly in love with an ebook app for my iPod Touch!

First there was this more-or-less useful app called… uh, I forget. BookShelf or something. But I paid for it, and it was what I used to read books from Baen [www.baen.com].

I found it counter-intuitive and a little wonky to use. I read a few books with it, but I couldn’t tell you what they were called or who wrote them because the interface didn’t really show me that info ever again after I’d opened a book. The page-turn function was weird and took me weeks to figure out, and over all the app was awkward to navigate. Since I’ve been using various ebook software for a decade on a variety of platforms, an app has to be pretty convoluted for me to find it hard to use.

stanza1

I did most of my iTouch ebook reading in eReader [http://www.ereader.com/ereader], an app I downloaded to use with my Fictionwise [http://www.fictionwise.com] account (Fictionwise, recently purchased by Barnes & Noble, owns and operates the eReader site, and I think the app itself is a descendant of the Palm Reader).

eReader is a truly great little app, and it connects directly to one’s Fictionwise or eReader bookshelf to download new content purchased online. The interface is easy to use and makes sense.

I installed the Amazon Kindle app because it was free, and there were free books at Amazon to read with it. I’ll always take free ebooks! The app works well, but of course it only lets you read Kindle content. Not all Kindle books can be read with it, either. But it’s a solid app and every time you open it it uses your wi-fi connection to see if you’ve purchased any new content and downloads it automatically.

Continue reading Software Review: Stanza →

The Weekend, It Ends Too Soon

Blurbs

In which there are many pictures in today’s post because it’s Monday and I’m too grumpy to actually write anything.

Friday after work I went to my stylist’s brand new salon:

The Red Door Salon

and got my hair done. I asked her to give me a bob and dye it brown, which she did. It now looks like this:

The New Dark Hair

I don’t like the color – it’s too dark for summer – and am going to have her lift it several tones at my next appointment.

Saturday I lounged around being a lump. (I did get all my laundry done, though.) Saturday afternoon I went to a fun family BBQ, and Teh BF and his Momsie came too:

Shish-kabobs

Saturday night I went to the PnE, where Feedback was playing, and got drunk. I even sat in with the band a few times, and so did my brother:

James

Sunday, Teh BF and I drove around all over town running errands. I spent $100 on HABA (and a couple of clothing items) at Walmart because I was out of everything. I bought nifty bento stuff at the Asia Oriental store and packed it for lunch:

Bento #98: Japanese

Today I am getting unreasonably irritated with my customers when they say dumb stuff, which leads me to mention that my vacation is at T -25 and counting. I absolutely cannot convey how very excited I am to be about to:

1. Leave town.
2. Fly. (I love airports. Sick but true.)
3. Go to the retreat in Dallas.
4. See Mother.
5. Not have to work for a week.

And how were your weekends, my babies?