In Which: Four More Days, Injury-Prone, Temperature Prevarication, Nerd News.

Monday is almost over - the last Monday at my summer co-op job. After this week, I'm back at university. It's been a really long summer, and it's been a really short summer. I feel like it really wasn't summer at all, except for the bloody heat.
I have sat in an office chair, and I have run around fixing printers. I have imaged computers, and I have wiped computers. I have counted printer pages, and I have swept the floor. I have gotten frustrated with users and computers because Everything is Broken Forever, and I have had the Tech Aura^TM make things magically work (yes, that's a thing. Sort of. It's like the Force. If you have the Tech Aura, all you have to do is look at a computer and it just works).
But this time Friday, I'll be out of here. Feels weird, man.

I did my 5k run on Saturday, with my bestie.
Normally, 5k takes me about 45 minutes. Saturday's run took me 43ish, and that was after walking the last km.
The only reason I walked the last km was that my knees were killing me. Stabbing pain and stuff. My muscles would have been perfectly happy to do the whole damn run, and in (comparatively) very good time, but my joints, my stupid joints. I got across the finish line and then was so mad at my stupid freaking knees that I cried. The First Aid tent people gave me a tensor bandage for the worst knee, and some ice for both. I kept it wrapped all yesterday, and it's still giving me achyness today, so I've got it wrapped again.
Other than that, it was a fun run, in the dark with glowsticks and colourful clothing. So much NEON, my eyes hurt...
And there were two little girls, about 10 and 8, who ran it, and they were troopers. They passed me right at the end. I was vicariously proud of them.

Still trying to figure out the best combination of blankets/window/pajamas to go with the hammock - ideal temperature is hard when you overheat on top and freeze on the bottom. Other than that, I'm still liking it. Because hammock.

In Lizzi's Nerd News, some people on reddit have come up with an idea within the last day: to make a sort of "Usenet 2.0"/"P2Preddit". This was spawned from a thread on a post (on a wart on a frog on a bump on a log... whoops, sorry, got carried away there) on /r/linux about the 22nd anniversary of Linus Torvalds' Usenet post that "started it all".
Another reddit member said this about it:

"An updated usenet wouldn't be a bad thing definitely.
With what else is going on in the world, leaving mass information centralized in the hands of a few government-intertwined corporations probably isn't best for future generations - encryption is a requirement."

Sounds about ideal for my recent tinfoilhattedness. I've signed on to help if I can. Because hey, why not? Plus, if it leaves the ground, it's good to have projects under one's belt when looking for a job. Not that that's my primary motivation - I'm really just interested in the whole thing. So far the noises people are making are in the direction of PGP plus some kind of Web-of-Trust system. So yeah.

That's about it. Toodles.

On Grocery Finds, Further Tin-Foiling, Cardio and Toes, Solitary Confinement, Wheels, and a TV Show That Shall Remain Nameless (At Least Until You Read This Post).

So I went grocery shopping yesterday - and found some very very cheap beef. Beef heart, to be precise. I cooked some up for my lunch this morning. It's very dense and filling. I like, I very much like. I'll have to get more when this runs out. Especially given how cheap it is. Bonus: it's organ meat. Apparently that's supposed to be good for you, or something. So that was a good find.

As per my last post, I'm still having bad feelings about internet privacy and/or safety, especially since Groklaw closed this morning. According to a blog post on the site, they closed because Lavabit closed, and they closed because, they say, email is not safe any more. I don't want to be watched by anyone, but I don't know what to do about it. I could, in theory, drop off the grid - it's just incredibly hard to do that when computers are my job. It might be easier if I was, say, a park ranger or something, you know?
Ah well. For now, I'll stick around, and wait to see how bad it gets.

I went out and bought a new pair of Vibrams last week: pink and grey ones. Partially for the Radiant Run on Saturday, and partially because I really like Vibram shoes and I wanted another pair. I actually went running in them last night, and managed a 5.something km loop, in 45 minutes. I have been known to complain about cardio and how much I dislike it. Well, I still dislike it, but I did get to a point after about the 3rd or 4th km where I just didn't care whether I kept running or not. Weirdest feeling ever. Course now my calves hurt. Yep.
Probably going to go running again Wednesday, and maybe a very short one Thursday, but Friday is definitely resting day and then Saturday night is the run. See? I have a plan ... I think.

Also, Vibrams make a very predictable, though amusing, conversation piece. Anyone who hasn't seen them before will inevitably ask what the hell they are and whether or not they're comfortable and doesn't it feel weird to have things between your toes all the time?; those who have seen them before but don't own a pair themselves will ask similar questions and then throw in things like, how is it running with them, and don't you feel rocks when you walk, and what about glass?; and then the people who also own them will happily tell you how much they like theirs and how comfortable they are for anything and everything, like it's a shared secret, or something. It's funny.

I'm all alone at work today, same as yesterday - my boss is on holiday for two weeks, and my other co-worker comes back to work tomorrow. It's been really quiet, fortunately, although yesterday I had some software that would not behave itself, no matter what I did to it. So then tomorrow I'm not alone, Thursday I'm not alone, and then Friday I'm alone again, because my boss at the secondary site takes every other Friday off - as I think I've explained before. At any rate, this is the week of Lizzi Runs The Show. It's terrifying, right up until the part where it actually happens, at which point most of the day is spent sitting in a chair at a desk, browsing reddit and occasionally answering the phone.

Another thing that's been on my mind lately is cars. I've been contemplating how much more convenient (particularly for groceries) a car is than a bicycle. The one thing that's stopping me is how much of a money dump such a thing would be, although I've seen a good handful of reasonable cars for less than $800 on craigslist. But money (or lack thereof) means, I guess, that I'll have to wait. In the meantime I'm browsing craigslist anyhow.
Speaking of wheels, though: my ugly little black mountain bike finally gave up the ghost. It had so many problems that I couldn't handle the thought of putting more money into it. So I walked down to the thrift store and picked up a nice old 10-speed street bike. Narrow tires, ram's-horn handlebar; I'm a happy happy duck. I didn't even have to think; I walked into the store, looked over the rack, and I knew that that was the one. Nice and easy. I pulled the kickstand and the new brake pads from the old bike and put them on the new one, and she works like a charm. The thing that makes me the happiest is that the gears and chain don't squeak as vilely as the old one did.

Still watching Supernatural like a fiend - most recently finished 6.12, the episode after Sam gets his soul back. A friend of mine made the comment that he didn't like season 6 and up, because in 6 the writers "jump the shark" - and now that I'm watching it, I have to admit, they do rather jump it. 1-5 was a good arc, and they could have ended it there without too much trouble. 6, so far, has been the writers reaching for story. Sam and Dean between them were total facepalm-worthy idiots at least until 6.06, possibly right up to 6.09/6.10. 6.11 was possibly the smartest Dean's been since season 5, and was definitely the dumbest Sam's been, ever. Really, going after Bobby? Dumbass. Even without a soul, there's no excuse for that crap.

Anyways, two hours left in the day, and I think I want to go organise some cables. We have a metaphorical rat's nest happening over on one table, and it's bothering me.

So, toodles, all.



Post Script: I didn't realise how long this post was going to be, or how multi-topic'ed. My bad, and good job if you got all the way through it! Guess I'm a little ADD when I'm writing ... ?

I'm the Hero of ... Canton? Also, of Windows 7 and Paranoia. Tin-Foil Hats for ALL!

I guess it's been a good two weeks since last I posted. Stuff has happened.

For example, I'm about halfway or a little more through season 5 of Supernatural - yep, still obsessed. Shouldn't be long til I'm starting season 6.

Went with my dad to see Serenity (that's right, the Firefly movie) on the big screen, because the movie theatre does play older cult movies sometimes. They even did Wrath of Khan once. Good times. I went full nerd in my Jayne hat and Blue Sun t-shirt, because why not, and there were others in the theatre also nerded out; one guy even came up and sang the Hero of Canton song at me.
"He robbed from the rich, and he gave to the poor / stood up to the man and he gave him what-for / our love for him now ain't hard to explain / the hero of Canton, the man they call Jayne!"
Someone else told me I looked like an idiot in my hat - but the way he said it, I think he was misquoting the line by Wash: "Man walks down the street in a hat like that, people know he's not afraid of anything!"
Oh nerd people, Y U SO AWKWARD.

Still absolutely happy with my new ear piercings; no regrets here. I might even get another set done at some point - or something else, maybe. Mmmm piercings. I have contemplated doing my septum (nose between nostrils, fyi) but that's a risky one, doesn't always look good on everyone.

At work the IT department as a whole is slowly rolling out Windows 7 (because everyone's still on XP, and Micro$oft is no longer supporting that as of April). It's due to go out to general users in September, but I'm the only person at either of the sites I work at who's even testing it out, because most users here (not including me) use some very elderly proprietary software that's not certified for Win 7 yet, and also because of the Active Directory structure involved. Oy vey. I can definitely see them pushing back the rollout when September finally arrives, due to unpreparedness. It's so going to happen.
The one thing I personally really find frustrating about the situation is that my admin account is still attached to XP, so sometimes I have admin privileges, and sometimes I don't - and there's no rhyme or reason for the back and forth on that one. Yay Active Directory.

On a much more serious note:
I was browsing reddit happily one day not so very long ago when I saw the first few articles about PRISM and the NSA and Edward Snowden, and since then I've been watching for further information, growing gradually more worried about the whole thing as it progresses.
The problem is, while America as a whole likes to hold tightly to the Fourth Amendment, saying that online communications ought to come under the category of things that should not be searched without probable cause, and that's great for them, if that works - and here's the but - there's no such thing in place for Canadians or anyone else who might happen to be elsewhere in the world. In fact, most of our data ends up in datacentres in the States, and the NSA is supposedly specifically looking at non-American communications for terrorists. This should really scare us all. I might even get labelled "terrorist" just for saying that, depending what their criteria are; who knows?
At this point, of course, I have a fuck-tonne of personal information all over the bloody internet, and it'd be really hard (not to mention highly impractical in today's world) to cut myself out of here, especially since I can't clean myself out of their records (not to sound really paranoid or anything, of course) - so I'm probably not going to bother. But still, I do get a little nervous about the entire business.
Anyone else getting worried?

Unrelated: I might start knitting tin-foil hats, if anyone's interested.
Heh.

I swear I'm sane, sometimes...

Toodles all!

Summer's almost over....

It's August already. I don't know where this summer has gone. I'll be back at university in a month. Way too fast, if you ask me - I really didn't get a summer this year. Ah well. Working life, I guess.

I've still been watching Supernatural - I'm now exactly halfway through Season 2. It makes me wish I could go "hunting" - taking care of ghosts and stuff that are hanging around being all malicious. I really like the show. Added bonus: Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles (Sam and Dean Winchester, in that order) are very very easy on the eyes. Mhm. Especially Jared. I mean, I'm not experiencing an actor-crush, at all... Really! (internal monologue: he's married, Lizzi - he's married, damnit!)
Although I almost can't take the show seriously since I saw W. Pender St. in "Chicago"... Most of their filming is in BC, especially Vancouver, but really.

I'm also (possibly foolishly) toying and/or experimenting with the idea of sleeping in a hammock on a regular basis - apparently it's the latest greatest best sleep thing you can do for yourself? Something about the zero-pressure-points resulting from not lying flat on a bed, makes for less tossing and turning or some such. I have no evidence to the contrary, so I figured, why the hell not? Can't hurt, anyways, and I've had terrible sleep for the last couple months, so it can't get any worse. So I'm currently sewing up a hammock from some nice thick circus-striped cotton I've got lying around (of course I have fabric lying around...!) and building a stand for it so I don't have to put holes in my (rented) walls. I may give up on the stand depending how it goes and just put holes anyways, cos they can, technically, be filled in after, but I'd prefer not to if I don't have to.

Damn, I'm turning into a freaking hippy - kombucha and kefir, toe shoes, no-'poo*, hammocks, organic and paleo food and other products, the list goes on. I blame you and your granola ways, mother mine!

*(shampoo free, for those who've never seen that phrase before.)

I also got my ears pierced again on Saturday. Funny story there. I was walking to the tattoo place to get them done, and stubbed my toe something fierce - and of course I was wearing open-toe sandals. So I'm bleeding all over my sandal and I walk in and ask to be pierced - and would they be able to give me something so I can bandage my toe? So they actually ended up bandaging my toe for me, and then I had my ears pierced right after. First aid from a tattoo shop. Who'd'a thunk it? Anyway, I now have a couple of secondary rings in my ears, so it's now two on each side. I'm really happy with how it looks.

Oh yes, and I'm doing a 5k run in Vancouver - the Radiant Run. It's for charity, and it's at night and full of glowsticks and brightly coloured clothing. I'm going with my friend Jessi. I've been tempted to get more Vibram toe shoes - and given the violently neon nature of most of their running shoes, this might be a good opportunity to splurge a little, since they would match the theme of the night...

Other than that, life as usual is life as usual - although for the next ten days I'll be housesitting for my friend with cats. Hoo boy. Don't get me wrong, I don't hate cats - I just don't like when their fur gets all over bloody well everywhere. Whoever invented lint rollers should have free beer for life.

As a final note, Don't Fear The Reaper is currently playing on the radio. It always makes me think of that SNL skit - but now it also makes me think of the episode "Faith" from Supernatural, the one with the tame Reaper that I was ranting about in my last post. They had the balls to play that song as part of the soundtrack, because Reaper. Hehehe. Anyways... (I'm totally NOT obsessed with that show...)

That's it, toodles all!

Goldenears, cleaning, floppy drives, and Monday.

I've had a busy busy weekend.

On Saturday both my Pathfinder games were cancelled, so the first thing I did was googlechat at my dad to request a hike-day. Originally the plan was to do Elk Mountain, cos that's our go-to day hike (especially since the mountain bikers took over Sumas' Centennial Trail, and that one subdivision went up right at the old trailhead... I'm not bitter; why do you ask?), but when I got to my parents' house, Dad suggested suddenly that we try Goldenears, and see how far we could go in one day. So we did that. Started hiking at 10.30 - a little later than I would have liked - and got about 30-45 min past Alder Flats, maybe a bit more, but then various feet started to hurt. I was in my Vibrams, which on any other trail would have been fine, but Goldenears trail is especially rocky, and by the end it felt somewhere between Hans Christian Andersen's Little Mermaid (whose every step felt like walking on knives) and playing guitar with no callouses for six hours straight. Let me tell you how glorious it felt, at the end, to walk on the plain dirt sections; it was like walking on freaking velvet, it was so amazing. Course, I'm also my mother's daughter: coming downhill was hell on my knees. And there was so very much downhill. We finally got back to the trailhead at 4.30. Once in the car, I promptly fell asleep and drooled on my own shoulder. Classy, right? It was a good day though.

Yesterday I acquired a copy of the Lord of the Rings Extended Edition Soundtrack. It has every piece of music from those movies ever. The Elves' chant in the Fellowship when they're leaving for the ships, Aragorn's snippet of Tinuviel's song, all Merry and Pippin's drinking songs, even Gollum's Rock and Pool song - and all the ones you thought you knew (from the "proper" soundtrack) are so much longer and more complicated than you thought they were. So yesterday afternoon I played that while I cleaned my room. I did so much laundry, and I organised stuff. I even rearranged my room - a plan that occurred to me around 8.30pm, which reminds me - why on earth do I get the urge to do major cleanup/rearrangement late in the evening? I did have a momentary concern that it would cause me confusion in the morning, but that didn't last long. And it does look better; much better. Now I'm thinking I might do that for all the other rooms in my house. Someone stop me before I do something foolish....

Today at work I took apart computers and removed floppy drives from them so we can surplus the computers and use the floppy drives later. Yes, we still need those. Yes, they're technically obsolete. No, I'm not going to argue. Tomorrow I'm going to take all those said computers and wipe them. Then I'll put them on my list of things to be surplussed. Can I hear Three Cheers for Doing The Same Old Thing At Work As You Did Before? hip hip....

Anyways, it's almost going-home-time - thus ends another Monday.

Also, I'm looking forward to a metal show on Friday - First Reign and Dialect 9. It'll be awesome.

Toodles all.

Anglophone rage, an adventure in coordination, FINALLY NO MORE HAGGIS, laptops, gaming, and Friday.

To this day I don't understand why Canada has to be bilingual. We English speakers make up most of the population of this country. Francophones are just the vocal minority.
Course, I'm probably just a wee bit pissed because I'm thoroughly mono-linguistic (although I admit I have designs on being fluent in Sindarin, not that that's particularly widely spoken) and I just had to make a warranty call to somewhere in Quebec. It irritates me when I'm clearly speaking accent-free English and I can hear the lady I'm talking to speaking in French to her co-worker without shame. Dude. I'm right here. I can hear you - and I can't understand you. It's incredibly rude, in my opinion.

Last night I hung out with some friends. We had tacos on the porch and played darts and pool, and the six-pack of Lonetree cider I brought disappeared very quickly, most of it not down my throat. I failed epically at darts, but actually did surprisingly well at pool - it was girls vs guys, and we would have won except I accidentally potted the white while trying to get the eight-ball out. At the end of the night, I grabbed three cans and a bottle, two things in each hand, to carry upstairs. At that moment, a pool cue fell, so I caught it. Picture this: left hand, a can held by my thumb and index, and a bottle between my index and middle fingers; and right hand, from thumb to ring finger, similarly holding two cans and a pool cue. So far so good. So I went to put the pool cue back in the stand, and just as I managed to get it to clip into the bit at the top, one of the cans fell out of my right hand and bounced smack off the top of my head. Moral of the story: put down the bottle and cans before you try to do anything involving hand-eye-coordination. Although, it was pretty funny timing.

Also, because you care so much, this is the end of the Saga of the Haggis: I ate the last of it for lunch today.
I just have to laugh at all the people who get all grossed out by the fact that I'm eating haggis. It's really not as gross as you'd think, I swear!

I have a laptop at work today that I'm supposed to image with a specific image - and it refuses to take it. Dammit Toshiba why?! I've tried at least five different ways of getting it to image, and it just refuses. At the moment I've got it on my lap instead of the desk behind me, so I can keep a closer eye on it, and hopefully see what it is that's breaking so badly. Aaaaand nope. It still broke. WHY.

On the subject of laptops, I installed Steam on mine this morning before work, and started it downloading Portal. Hell yeah. It was about 40% when I left. I have yet to upgrade the RAM in it, but that will happen before I start playing. And on the subject of gaming, I'm definitely going to go out and get an HDMI adaptor for the monitor I bought so that I can use my OUYA with it. Who needs a TV?

Happy Friday, everyone.

Toodles.

Is it really only Thursday?

So for the new laptop I went with Ubuntu 13.04, because I'm used to Ubuntu, overly pretty or otherwise. I had some fun trying to get it installed though. My mother has my 4gb flash drive in her possession because I'm playing her Doctor Who dealer, and I only have a 1gb one otherwise, and the iso once applied to a flash drive takes 2gb, and I didn't have any writable CDs or DVDs that were compatible with the CD drive in the old laptop. This made my life difficult until I found a 2gb microSD card. So I currently have a card as big as my thumbnail loaded up with Ubuntu, fully bootable. Which seems really bizarre to me, because it's so damn tiny. (I should totally try to boot my phone from it. Then again, maybe not.)
Anyhow, spent some time setting that up, and then got it into my bedroom and hooked it up to the secondary monitor that I bought, and watched Torchwood on the monitor while still having facebook open on the main laptop screen. Damn, new shiny stuff is awesome. Heh. I did find out that the new lappy only has 2gb of RAM, so assuming they're the same type, I'll definitely be boosting that out of the old one.

And yes, I had haggis for dinner last night. Cooked it up with 3 sweet potatoes, sliced up, and half an onion, all in the oven together with some rosemary on top. Hit the spot, it did. And had leftovers for lunch today, and probably enough left for lunch tomorrow too. At $8 for one haggis, that works out to 2-something a meal (not counting the sweet potatoes), which is a pretty good deal. Cheaper than eating out, anyway. And tasty. Nom nom nom. I think I weirded out my boss by appreciating haggis. Oh well, more for me.

Didn't get much cleaning done, because of the computer taking pretty long to set up - nor did I get my hair recoloured. But that's okay. I can get some cleaning done today after work, maybe - and definitely Friday after work too. Thankfully, the hair thing (as I said yesterday) isn't imperative - so that could wait til Monday, or even longer, if I wanted. We'll see how it goes.

At work my boss and I set up a computer with two monitors, which is fairly standard, but we also had to put a second keyboard and mouse on it. Hilarity ensued: I'd go to right-click on the desktop for settings, and he'd click away so my menu disappeared immediately; or he'd go to log in, but I'd already hit Ctr-Alt-Del and so he'd do it again and thus exit from the login screen. At one point he was moving his mouse left/right, and I was moving my mouse up/down, so it went in a really wonky circle. What is it they say about small things and small minds?

The radio at work played Werewolves of London this afternoon. I can't take that song seriously. I crack up every time I hear it. I want to know how in hell he sang that song with a straight face. Also, I'm getting bloody tired of Skagit Valley Casino radio ads. That and whichever credit union has the stupid jingle about being "in your corner".

Can't wait for Friday, it's been a long busy week so far. Can't wait for next Friday, either - metal show to see! Woohoo!

Anyways, signing off for now.
Toodles.

Edit: formatting ...

Well that wasn't so bad.

After the terror inspired by my co-worker, that really wasn't so bad. She just asked about how I liked it, what I've learned so far, etc., etc. So the terror really wasn't warranted.

Oh, and yesterday I somehow won a custom sundress from a giveaway on facebook - I never win stuff, so that was a surprise. I get to inspect some sketches today. Hoooo boy.

Today I also discovered that The Devil's Panties is back... that was my favourite webcomic for a long time and then she stopped - but she's back! However, I hadn't checked her site in a while, so there's a couple of years of stuff to catch up on, like her marriage, for example... And no, it has nothing to do with Satan, nor porn. She's a geeky chick with LARPing tendencies who wears big black boots; I need to be friends with her, I think, but fat chance of that cos she lives in the States and probably has dozens of fans besides me anyways.

I'm thinking of getting another piercing or two. Possibly somewhere on my ear(s). My one friend says I'd look good with an industrial. I was thinking either a secondary pair of lobes or maybe something up in the top of my ear, in the cartilage. Alternatively, I might get my nose done, or (less likely) a couple of dermal anchors somewhere. Thoughts, people?

So that's it.

Toodles.

Oh help.

Today is the Co-op Site Visit.

That means that someone from UFV's Career Centre comes out to the place I'm working, to discuss me with my supervisors, and then talk to me after. It's like an interview; only it's an interview that affects my grade at university.

My co-worker very kindly gave me a piece of advice - anything they say about me, not to take personally, because it will probably be constructive criticism. As in, they might say less-than-pleasant things.

You know that knot that happens in the pit of your stomach, the terror-fueled adrenaline rush that makes you feel like you want to vomit? Yeah. I have that right now. Not pleasant.

Even worse, I have to come back and sit through the rest of my eight-hour day afterwards. I wish this was over and I could just go home.

Oh the stress.
Toodles.

Best Friday Ever.

I'm all alone in the office today, so my boss left me a list of stuff that I should try to get done.
I swear, I'm more productive when I have a list of things to do than when he's making it up as he goes along; I haven't been on Reddit once this morning, but so far I've wiped eleven computers, and of those I took half a dozen and put floppy drives in them; later today I'll put a new image on them, if I can. I also have two computers that I swapped out and a profile to restore, as well as some (technically optional) Active Directory stuff to do, of which I've already got a large chunk done, because I did it while waiting for the computers to wipe.
Damned if I haven't done more today already than I've done all week - though it's hard to get anything done when one has to sit and supervise contractors - so that explains some of it.

So that's been exciting.

I think I like working alone. I get to listen to the radio station I want (which today happens to be Praise 106.5... Yeah - it was the most tolerable option that was not Classic Rock).

Time to go see if there's coffee somewhere. Cos I (really don't) need caffeine right now...
Also, after work: more lifting. Awww yeahhh.
Speaking of which, got a bunch of random tips from an older guy at the gym on Wednesday, most of which (though, granted, given with all the best intentions) I believe to be broscience and will be taken with a heaping hill of salt. Didn't go running yesterday, but I think it's for the best; my legs complained so much after the run on Tuesday that I figure it's better to let them rest a little.

Coffee time.

Toodles!


Post Script: I have discovered that I have the reflexes of a ninja. I just accidentally knocked my lunch off my desk, and caught it before I'd even realised it had fallen. Nothing even spilled. I am officially awesome.
Best Friday ever.

In which I'm bored.

And thus goes the third day in a row of sitting in a boardroom watching contractors set up video-conferencing.
I started Sense and Sensibility yesterday while sitting here, finished it about ten minutes ago - and all the reading I did was in here over the course of, what? 8-9 hours total? Also, one of the guys is a drummer, so we had a conversation about music just now.

Still sore today from my workout on Monday - more sore, in fact, than I was yesterday, but then again it probably didn't help that I decided that a run would be a good idea for days I wasn't at the gym... Which reminds me, I'm due to be back at the gym tonight yet. Ow. Will probably have to deload a little for my squats so I don't die completely... I will probably also go a little later than I did on Monday; too many people taking up space in my weightroom. I had to go kill about ten minutes on the treadmill before I could use the squat rack.
And that reminds me. Why do gymbros never put away their weights when they're done with them??? It's basic kindergarten stuff, to clean up after yourself. But I can never find anything because they never put it away. It's ridiculous and very frustrating.

Anyhow, I knew I'd finish S&S (and I'd finished P&P on Sunday - oh yes! I acquired copies of Pride and Prejudice, Northanger Abbey, and Sense and Sensibility on Saturday by trading in my Terry Goodkind books at a used bookstore for credit! Library is being improved!), so I cleverly brought The Fellowship Of The Ring with me for my next piece of literary immersion, so I'm off to do that.

Toodles all.

In which I obsess about lifting and more lifting. Also the end of the Dying Adventure.

So I would consider today to be reasonably successful, for a Monday.

I overslept by 15 minutes (yay alarm not going off) but luckily, I had already made my lunch, so that was nice. Work was work, as it always is; installed two secondary monitors, watched some contractors putting video-conferencing equipment up in a boardroom, slept at my desk... but the best part was after work: I kicked myself into gear and went to the gym! Yay!

Numbers for the day are:
 -- Squat -- 125lb
 -- Bench -- 75lb
 -- Dead -- 135lb
... which means I'm almost back to my highest weights; April 8th I made 130 on my squats and 140 on deadlifts. Took a two month break and went back June 8th; went today for the first time since then. Not so shabby for taking so much time off.

Plus, some guy was all impressed that I was using the bench at all; as he said (and as I well know), "most women don't benchpress." We swapped off between sets and I felt kind of pathetic cos my weights were peanuts for him - he used it as a warm-up and then threw 45lb plates on either end for his second set! Ah well, maybe one day I'll lift a pair of 45lb plates for my bench...

I plan to go running after work tomorrow and Thursday, and then back to the gym Wednesday and Friday. This will be the week of early bedtimes for Lizzi. But I'm hoping to keep this up for a while, we'll see how it goes. I may eventually decide not to run so much as that - to be honest, I kind of hate running. My darling papa is determined to share with all his children the wonderfulness of running - the man runs 10kms on a near-daily basis, and runs from Abbotsford to Langley every year! I ran with him once, because he asked me to, but I really don't like it. Vice versa, I love weightlifting, and I keep telling him he should try it - I ran with him, so he should come lifting with me. It's only fair, right?
But for now I'm including running because my friend has convinced me to join in a dodgeball tournament for charity in Richmond in July, so I'm going to need to run. Bah. My no likey.

On a completely different note, an update on the Dying Adventure: the black dye didn't do what I wanted it to do - not quite, anyhow. I may have to order better black online. RIT DYE, Y U SUCK SO BAD?
The green linen came out a dark khaki/army green, and the mauve silk came out an interesting purple-grey. Neither of which is terribly bad, but wasn't what I wanted. Although, I expected the silk wouldn't behave itself anyhow, because of being a different type of fibre, so that wasn't too disappointing.
The blue, on the other hand, I am quite happy with still, and it will make a fantastic dress.

So that's it.
Toodles!

Another Monday post. Sorry.

Well, here is Monday.

I keep falling asleep over my desk. Not good. Probably didn't get enough sleep over the weekend.

However, I feel rather accomplished: Friday night after work I cleaned my entire kitchen and bathroom, and then Saturday morning I cleaned my living room. Bedroom's next, if I'm still awake when I get home. I may need a nap first. But either way, it's nice to walk through a clean house. Here's hoping I can keep it that way.

Saturday I went hiking with a new friend. We sat in the sunshine for several hours, and I got thoroughly burnt on my arms and shoulders; I'm red as a lobster. It's been uncomfortable to sleep on, I tell you. The hike was glorious, though, and the view was amazing, and I went up in my awesome Vibram FiveFinger toe shoes, which was fun. First time I've hiked in them. I did slide a little bit down a hill at one point, and got a wee scrape on my hand, but otherwise they were good.

People have been drilling holes in the walls of my office at work - apparently cable needs to be put in place, so we have contractors coming in and getting concrete and drywall dust all over. At least they know to put plastic over top first; and they also vacuum up after themselves, which is nice I have to say, though the concrete drilling is very very noisy.

Side comment: I have also started re-reading Pride and Prejudice for my own edification and amusement - the improvement of the mind by extensive reading, you know.

And now I'm counting down the last half-hour before I get to go home and have a proper nap: thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-muffin, twenty-orange, monkey, shoe, umbrella, fork, here we go 'round the mulberry bush...

Toodles all, I'm going to sleep now...

In which I do stuff, I receive stuff, and I break stuff. Well, Dad broke it first.

Well this should be interesting. I'm running the show at work at my secondary site this afternoon after setting up a projector for a slideshow. Then next week I'm doing the same at the primary site on Monday and Wednesday both. Oy vey. I don't know if I'm up to being the boss all by myself yet. But gotta do what gotta do, neh?

Oh, and my co-workers know me rather well already.
I got to work this morning and there was a book on my desk, which I got told was for me. It's a True Blood cookbook. Apparently I appear to be one of those people who appreciates vampires. Hah. My one co-worker gets books like that from HBO for being a good customer. I dunno. All I know is that I'm taking this thing home with great pleasure.
Ironically, I don't even watch the show. I've seen bits of episodes, and read bits of the books it's based on, but I haven't really gotten into it the same way I got into Doctor Who for example.
I just love that my co-workers know me that well. I even tone my clothing down for work on purpose - but I guess once a goth, always a goth...

Something else that happened the other day: I used to have a cute little blue-plastic-cased typewriter. It wasn't working properly, so on Wednesday I opened it up and fixed it. But then I found another problem with it, and while I was poring over it, my dad turned up at my house; he was waiting for someone and my house was close so he dropped in. I showed him the problem, and he said, oh, here, let me look. And accidentally broke it altogether. Whoops. So yesterday I pulled it to bits with a screwdriver, because I was in a mood and needed something to destroy, and since it was already broken, it didn't matter so much. So that worked out, and now I have typewriter keys and letter hammers and all those good things. Plus I felt better after.

So that's it. Toodles.

Computers are frustrating, and I have stuff in my house.

Once again, I took a two day break from The Blog. My excuse is that life has been slow and work has been busy, both of which conspire to give me little material and little time, respectively, for blogging.

I do have two computers that I was supposed to reimage that have not been cooperating. I even wiped them both completely before reimaging, and still nothing worked. So they're currently sitting in the Corner of Shame with labels slapped on them that reads remorselessly in Large Black Letters DIESE MITARBEITEN NICHT* because they pissed me off. However, I think I might have something else up my sleeve to try on them, I'm attempting it right now, but it'll be about half an hour before I know whether it works or not.

*(and if my grammar is dreadful, I'm not surprised; Ich spreche nur ein klitzeklein bisschen Deutsch, and most of it from Google Translate. Please don't hate me.)

 In other news, my beloved mother painted a beautiful pair of side tables and a matching coffee table for me, so I had to rearrange my living room for them - the side tables were to go on either side of my couch, but I had fabric and miscellany tucked around it that I had to move first, so my living room is in a bit of a state of disarray. It's mostly things that I couldn't find a place for when I first moved in, so now I'm going through them, and I already have half a box of trash as a result, which feels rather good. The coffee table is still in my mother's hands, I believe it needed a touch-up, but that's fine considering the state of my living room. There's no way it would fit at present. The unfortunate thing is that I'll need coasters now, because of the finish. I'll probably end up making some geeky ones (especially now that I have my sewing machine back....!).

Anyways, I must go and tend to the recalcitrant computer soon, it's almost at the stage where it would break if it's going to...

Toodles!

Stuff that surprisingly worked out well, and some factoids I found out.

Well, good morning.
It's Monday.

I had a somewhat interesting weekend.

After the events of Thursday (in which the wrong size inner tube was purchased and Math was used to explain why this is a Very Bad Thing), I did get back to Canadian Tire on Friday to exchange it for the right size. Saturday morning I put it on the bike (and adjusted the back brake callipers while I was at it, because those were all messed up) and rode off to the gym for the first time in a couple months.
Where, despite a couple-month break, I got within 10lbs of my highest weights on squats and deadlifts, and didn't go down in weight at all on bench press. So that felt good - well, up until Sunday morning, at which point the soreness started.... Still sore now, by the way, two days later. Whoops.
Anyways, I came out of the gym to find:
The same damn tire was flat again.
At this point I decided I would bite the bullet and attempt a patch. I'm terrified of patching inner tubes, because there's rubber cement involved and all kinds of weird things. But I wasn't going to buy a whole new inner tube a second time in two days. Not happening. So I stopped in at Canadian Tire again, while walking my bike home from the gym with rubber legs (so much fun). Got home and patched it. I know, it's a little anticlimactic. I also went over my tire to see if there was anything poking into the inner tube - and there was a tiny piece of wire stuck in the tire such that it wasn't visible from the outside (believe me, I checked), so I pulled that out with some pliers. It hasn't given me any trouble so far, and I got to ride to work this morning, finally!

Saturday was also my best friend's birthday, so I picked up a birthday present and went home to have a cup of tea before my ride showed up - and then realised 15 minutes before I was supposed to leave that I hadn't got a card for her. So I made a five minute card, but in the process of searching for materials for it, found something in a box that made my life so much easier.
And here I just need to introduce a rabbit trail that I promise makes sense: I own a Bernina 708 sewing machine. I call it a tank. It looks a little something like this:

And in the process of moving to my new little basement suite, I had lost the presser foot, which made me sad. On Saturday after the gym, Canadian Tire was not the only place I went; there was a quilting store on the way as well, and I stopped to inquire about the possibility of ordering a new foot. Well. Apparently presser feet for old machines like mine run about $50-$60 because it's a special order. So, at home, while looking for materials for a card, I found my presser foot - I had packed it in a smaller box of miscellany and had just never opened it since the move.
I almost did a happy dance.
So I'll be sewing stuff this summer. YAY.

In other news, why (or perhaps how) do Germans have a word for everything? I found out this weekend that they have a word for that feeling you get when you watch a movie/tv show, and you end up cringing on the characters' behalf. This is a feeling that my dad and I share; when anything particularly cringeworthy is on tv or whatever (particularly Mr. Bean and similar humour), we frequently find ourselves having to leave the room/fastforward/hide under blankets/plug our ears... anything to stop the cringe. But as I was saying, there is actually a German term for this. Fremdscham. In its constituent parts it basically means Other Shame; feeling shame on another's behalf, in other words.
German also has a word for the pain that some women feel when they ovulate: Mittelschmerz: Middle Pain. Seriously, they have a word for everything.

Anyways, happy Monday, everyone.
Toodles.

It's been a while?

And by a while, I mean two days. Two whole days without a blog from me. Oh dear, however did you survive? (says the girl who didn't blog for an entire eight-month stretch; yes, I'm laughing at myself.)

My excuse is, the last two days were legitimately busy at work. I was running around dealing with printers and monitors and PS2-type keyboards that may or may not have had a sticky key that was causing the computer to reboot constantly and it doesn't matter anyway because I just stuck a USB keyboard on the desk, plugged it in, and it magically worked. Who knows. I wiped a handful of computers, imaged a handful of computers, and would have ghosted a new colour photocopier but the firmware was newer than the one it was replacing, so I had to put settings in by hand.
I won't judge you if you only understand some of that. I won't even judge you if you don't understand any of that. I am just so nice and non-judgey.

Wednesday I got paid, at last, and I even got to keep some of it for myself. It was nice to finally buy groceries without limiting myself to $20 for a week's worth. Those who know of my paleolithic eating habits will know how bothered I was at having to eat KD and Mr Noodles simply because they're cheap. I bought a bag of breakfasty stuff to try, because why not, and laughed at it - it's ground flaxseed, nothing else, labelled PowerFlax in big red letters, and touted as being sponsors of the BC Lions. Damned Manly Breakfast, I call it, and texture-wise it's like cream of wheat and egg whites had a baby; but it's not bad. For groceries, I still eventually have to pick up some beef and bacon.
I am also tempted, for meat, to go rabbit hunting with my dad, he with his WristRocket and me with Gwenny.
Whoa. Hold up. I haven't mentioned Gwenny on my blog, have I? She got shared on Instagram and Facebook, but she happened during the eight-month Dark Night Of The Blog. The story is, I was researching stuff for fun and profit, and I happened to be researching bows. Like, the kind you shoot. And I researched, and researched, as I do, and I said to myself after the fourth hour, "I can do this."

So I did. I bought a long-enough piece of hickory to even lop off a 12" piece and glue it on the middle for a handle riser; I shaped, sanded, and tillered it, all in my living room; and I bought a couple small spools of B50 Dacron and made a white/black bowstring. All in all, took around 2-3 days. She pulls around 35lbs, which is not bad for a first bow, and I regularly take it into the backyard and kill a particular stump sitting there. I may yet back her with linen or silk cos that will keep her from exploding if she breaks, but for now I'm content.
Anyways, I might take her out and shoot rabbits one Saturday morning. For Science. Yep.

Last night was fun too, but in a less fun way than groceries. My bike's back tire has been flat for the last week and a half or so, but Poor Me has had no money to get a new inner tube, so I've just been hoofing it everywhere. So last night I hoofed it to Canadian Tire to get said new tube, and didn't think beforehand about checking the size I needed. Bought a size too big. But of course, because tires and whatnot are all measured in diameter, not circumference, one inch's size difference in the diameter means it's actually 3.1415926 inches longer around. The end result being, the inner tube was too long to fit inside the tire. So I now have to exchange it for the correct size. I was mad though; it buggered up my plans for the evening, which were, namely, to buy myself a beer and go hang out at my parents' house because bicycle.

And this morning I had an odd dream: I had black corkscrew-curly hair that I had to brush flat before it would behave itself, and the tenants upstairs were digging holes in the walls of, and otherwise dismantling, my bathroom - they said there was a fly behind the wall and they had to get it out because it was bothering them. Then I had my youngest sister over and we went for a walk and passed some people I knew, but they didn't recognise me, and I blame the sunglasses I was wearing. Anyways.

So that brings me, with a terrible and fully unrelated segue, to my final thoughts of the day: I was interested, when I was looking at my blog stats (because I don't know about you, but I am intrigued by the blog visits/views/viewer statistics), to see that my feministic rant from last week is actually among the top five viewed posts on my blog, out of every post I've ever written here. The other four are my comments on pretty boys, on things I smelled one day, on the TV shows I like (though Doctor Who ought to now be at the top of that list), and (oh, the memories) on being a fitting room attendant. I don't know why I find that fascinating, but I do. Partly because people prefer to read particular things over other things, perhaps. At any rate, I'm glad you people appreciated my rant as much as you seem to have. I know one friend said I was her hero as a result of that post, which I am really not sure I deserve, but I'm definitely rather flattered by.

That's it. Toodles!

TL;DR: I got stuff, went places, did things, ate food, went to work, lifted stuff, and have an opinion.

The last couple of days has been mildly interesting.

Some news that any of you readery types who aren't friends with me on facebook won't have seen: my OUYA arrived on Tuesday. It's a teeny tiny game console built on Android. Unfortunately, I still haven't been able to try it out, because I don't have a TV. I do have a computer monitor coming, eventually (i.e. when I can pay for it), so that's what I'll be hooking it up to, but in the meantime I might go over to the parental carbon units' place of residence and see if they have an appropriate screen I can try it out on. Because gaming. And when not gaming, the monitor will be attached to my laptop. Because dual monitors. I have dual monitors at work and it's glorious; I need this in my house.

Tuesday I also went for a walk in Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver with my friend and her sister. The park was so beautiful, even in the rain. Plus, just for kicks I piggybacked my friend for a good long distance, and due to her height she has several pounds on me, so I felt strong after that. Was fun.

Yesterday I was in a regional IT staff meeting from 8.30 am til 3.ish pm. My boss was there too, and he actually told me not to bother coming in to work after that, since I get off work at 4, so there was no point in even starting work. It was kind of odd - but they ordered pizza for everyone, so hey, free food is free; I'm not going to object.
The other thing yesterday was the whole my-phone-is-on-crack-let's-take-it-apart thing. I'm so glad that got sorted out (even though I have no idea how).

Today I got in to work to find that a bunch of ceiling tiles had taken a holiday away from my office due to flooding. As far as I know, they were the only things that really took a hit, happily. Then I got summoned to set up a computer - yay for crawling around unceremoniously on the floor. My boss and I also muscled around a Xerox colour laser printer, and he asked me afterwards if my back was okay - "Yeah," I said, "I've deadlifted more than that before." And I have. I've lifted over my own bodyweight in deadlifts before. Damn, I love deadlifts, and they even come in handy in the real world. HAH.

In closing: I think that Comic Sans is really not appropriate for work emails, and I don't understand the users who choose to make it their default.

Toodles!

Beginning of a new week...

It's very much a Monday today, or has been so far.

I woke up this morning and didn't want to get out of bed. I also decided that since it's Monday, and I didn't feel like showering, that I didn't have to if I didn't want to; a little bit of deodorant and putting my hair up goes a long way. And you can't tell me you've never done that either.

At work I have about 30-40 computers that I have to wipe, one by one. It takes about an hour and a bit per computer, but fortunately you can move the disc as you go. On the other hand, all the currently burned discs of wiping software have expired licenses. So I have to burn a new one, which requires installing burning software onto my computer. Oh the runaround. So I'm off to burn a disc.

Oh yes, and I get to see Sigur Ros tonight. Thanks Amanda :)

Toodles!

short and sweet

Well, my wonderful father fixed my computer - apparently my /tmp/ permissions got fubar'd royally, and he did stuff and put it back the way it was supposed to be. Thanks daddy!

It's also Friday and I don't want to be at work today, even though this was already a short week, but the day will be over soon.
I think I might also drop in on my parental residence to use the maternal carbon unit's sewing machine, because mine is without a presser foot, and sewing by hand is impossibly tedious. I know you'll be reading this, so may I, mother?

And on Monday, I'm going to see Sigur Ros with my friend, so I'm leaving work early by two hours. It'll be good.

Short blog today, but I don't have much to say.
Toodles.