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.

In which I use Physics, and possess Insanity.

I am slightly insane.

I like being insane, so it's okay, but let me tell you all about my insanity.

I mentioned at the beginning of the month that I was thinking about making a hammock for sleepage. Well, I did it.
It went through a couple iterations, but I did end up sleeping in it last night.

I had to create a stand, because I didn't want to put holes in my walls (yay renting!), and I wanted a simple stand that didn't take too much work and could be dismantled without too much effort. I decided that the stand variously known as the TurtleDog or Tripod stand was the most practical. The second iteration regressed to the vanilla Turtlelady stand, because the Olddog variation collapsed on top of me (ow...).

Let me explain that last paragraph...
A contributor on hammockforums.net, known as Turtlelady, came up with a dual-tripod+suspended-crossbar stand made of bamboo.
The physics of this is that a tripod is very sturdy, and if one were to suspend something from the centre joint of a tripod, between the legs, this is a very stable place to hang. If you had one tripod and a bat-hammock (all corners hang from a single point, and yes, this is a thing), you'd be good to go.
However, an ordinary hammock (especially a loaded one) pulls inwards towards itself from either end, so even if you were to hang both ends of the hammock from two tripods, they would collapse because it's not a direct downward pull.
Hence the suspended crossbar.
Hang each end of the crossbar from the centre joints of the two tripods, and each end of the hammock from the ends of the crossbar. The crossbar takes the horizontal inward force from the loaded hammock, and the tripods take the vertical force. At that point it becomes very sturdy indeed.
Turtlelady's stand was based on the three poles in each tripod being lashed together with rope, and another rope farther down the legs to keep them from splaying out and collapsing downwards.
Another contributor known as Olddog made a variation on the Turtlelady stand, where the inside two legs of each tripod are screwed onto one half of a gate hinge, and the outside leg is on the other half of the hinge. Hence why it got called the TurtleDog stand - a little bit from each contributor. The Olddog version is little more industrial-looking, and (I thought) a little more sturdy.

It seems I didn't get strong enough hinges, is the short version; I set it up for the first time last night, and everything went well for several hours, until the legs twisted around and bent the hinges and the whole lot came down, at about 9.15pm last night. I'm just glad nothing broke.

Of course I had already adjusted my bedroom to make room for this thing, including standing my mattress/boxspring up against the wall, and I, being the stubborn, do-it-all-by-my-own-fucking-self, pigheaded chick that I am, was determined that I would not put my bed back down for love nor money. No, the hammock and stand would do what I wanted, even if I was up til 11.00 to do it.

Happily, I had picked up a package of 100m or so of poly cord from Canadian Tire just in case (in case of what? I wasn't sure, but now I know!), so I dismantled the tripods and hinges and used the cord to lash the hell out of those poles. I also took the screws from the hinges and screwed down another piece of poly cord to keep the legs from splaying out too far.
I even tried to put my small knowledge of physics to use, and set up the two tripods to twist in opposite directions (because when you use lashing, the legs have to twist past each other in order to open up) so that both tripods won't overtwist in one direction and collapse, which is partially what happened with the hinges - I looked at them after they came down, and they'd both twisted the same way. It works in my head, I'm not sure if it's real physics or just Lizzi-brain-physics, but I'll go with it. Any real physicists want to chime in on this? For science!?

Anyways, after that, I got it set up with no more issues, all was well, and I slept in the damn thing, and I was even in bed a little early.

The only thing I didn't like was that it was a little colder than usual, so I didn't sleep as well as I could have, but I have an idea to fix that too. I'll see how it goes tonight.

So that's it. Toodles all.

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!

Too many shows.

My friend got me hooked on Supernatural.

This would normally not be a bad thing, except that I'm also trying to watch Torchwood.

However, I just finished episode 12 of season 1. Yes, I know, I have a lot to catch up on. The point being, I predicted the plot of this one well before half of the show was over.

(Warning: I'm going to start ranting about plot, and if you've never seen Supernatural and you plan to, you might want to stop now and go somewhere else until you get past ep. 12. Unless you don't care about silly spoilers. In which case, be my guest. Because I'm going to pretty much tell the story here. Although I guess this show is now a good seven years old, so while I'm late to the party, I guess that means that a spoiler warning is technically pointless.)

So. Summary of plot.
Dean gets all electrocutey, gets heart damage as a result. Sam is desperate to save him, and drags him off to this blind faith healer (who himself had been miraculously healed of cancer, after which he can apparently heal others) in Nebraska. Dean gets healed, but some other kid dies of a heart attack for no reason - at exactly the same moment. They figure this out, and figure out who's to blame, stop the culprit, blah blah blah, happy-ish ending.
I say "ish" because the nice cute blonde chick with brain cancer and six months to live never gets healed. Sadface for Dean, who has a crush. Well -- he kind of has a crush on every cute blonde they find in terrible danger, just saying.

Now here's where I start ranting.

Halfway through, they start suspecting that the healer guy isn't all he's cracked up to be. They think he's got a tame Reaper that he uses to mess with life & death. Well, that requires a binding spell. So they go snooping in his house and find...
A spell book. With a binding spell in it. Yay. But...

Dudes. Think a minute.

The blind guy is reading a book, now?

And yet they still think it's him.
Use your brains; it's his wife, numbnuts! The one who went totally desperate when she saw her husband dying? Seriously. As obvious as a pie in the face. But I digress.

So then Dean stops one of the meetings. The healer guy's wife says, and I quote, "The Lord will deal with him as He sees fit..."

Like, really? Sam, Dean - you guys don't see what she's saying? That phrase there means that you're the next victim, Dean, and that she's the one playing God with a Reaper on a leash.

Winchester must be another word for blonde, I swear, because these guys seem to be a special kind of clueless in this episode. They made it past at least 11 other monsters (including a Norse Vanr) and they can't freaking figure this out. Although I suppose they could be PMSing. Yeah, that's gotta be why they're so far off their game.

Anyways. Entertaining episode, and not as freaky as Bugs, or as heart-stopping as The Hook Man, or as disturbing as the scene from Home with the plumber in the kitchen (seriously, by the way, was I the only one who could see that coming a mile away? Poltergeist + plumber + "backed up" garburator == very bad things) ... but predictable-as-hell plot.

Rant over :)

Oh yes, and I almost forgot. The dodgeball tournament I was supposed to be in this weekend? We had to drop out. Not enough players. Just as well, I don't think we were quite prepared.
And my pinky finger that I jammed on a ball during dodgeball practice two weeks ago? Pretty sure I must have fractured it, because it shouldn't still be this painful/swollen, although the swelling did go down some, but it's not down fully. Maybe I should go to a clinic... *shrug*

Toodles, love you all!

Like a *bleep*ing BOSS.

I like being independent.

I like the fact that I went out and bought lightbulbs for my house.

It seems like a silly thing to like, but I friggen bought my own friggen lightbulbs. And that makes me feel like an autonomous grownup. Or something.

I also bought a stick of 2gb of RAM for my computer, and stole the 2gb stick from my old one, so I'm running with 4gb, like a boss. And I did it myself. Picked up the right kind without anyone's help - though I expect I confused the poor Best Buy guy... he meant well for offering to help, but I wasn't making sense even to myself... Haha. Anyways. All is running like a blooming dream.

And I will carry on being inde-freaking-pendent, like a BOSS.

By the way, another chapter in the Saga du Pinky: the swelling is finally going down a little. Still a wee bit sore, but nothing fearsome. So that's a relief.

That's it. Toodles!

In which I'm clumsy.

I learned a new word today: pantagruelian. It means enormous, and adequately describes the way my pinky finger looks today, as a result of last night.
Last night I went to dodgeball practice (Don't laugh at me. I joined up for a tournament at the end of the month that's for charity. After that it's done. And by the way we could use more players, particularly female ones.... ...Anyways). We were practicing by standing one person against a wall and a) practicing aim by throwing at the person, and b) practicing dodging by being the one against the wall. It was my turn against the wall, and someone said, "Hey! Try to catch this one!" So I tried. And smushed my pinky finger really badly.
It's all swollen now, and purple. Sadface. I don't think it's broken, cos I could move it yesterday - it's too fat and swollen to move much now - but it still flipping hurts.

I had the best/worst moment at work today. I went to sit on a chair to do some stuff. Didn't realise it wasn't under my butt. Sat down, astonished myself thoroughly, and landed on the floor. I laughed at myself properly after that. Ended up with a wee bruise on my backside, and a slightly larger bruise on my pride, but nothing serious.

Other than that, been a pretty slow couple of days. I may colour my hair when I get home - it's starting to bug me a bit more now. Yay roots.

So yeah. Toodles...

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 ...

tl;dr: skunking, mondayism, talk geeky to me, haggis, and reddit.

Well. Stuff happened.

Sunday I had a picnic in the park with all my dear family. It was picnicky - and much too warm. I skunked my uncle and my dad at cribbage - almost didn't cos my dad was one point away from getting across the line, but then I pegged out. Made me feel good, cos I've never skunked anyone before, and they've been playing much longer than I have - but I got a whole string of double-runs one after another, and most of them had fifteens too, so that's why. Plus my uncle had a series of really terrible hands. Sorry, Uncle.

Monday was mondayish; I actually fell asleep on my desk partway through the day and I'm really glad no-one noticed. It was only for a few minutes anyways. But then after work I got to hang out with my good friend Jessi and another friend, Jazzy - I made paleo apple fritters (I keep getting asked for the recipe. One of these days I'll publish it here, all formatted and with pretty pictures to go with it) and Jazzy made Earl Grey Tea and Lavender cookies. OH MY GOSH those were amazing. Then we sat on the floor and did crafty stuff for a while. I got some chain-mail done, as well as part of my "uniform" for the dodgeball team I'm in...
And I laughed at us because for a full half hour none of us said anything to anyone else. Introverts, much?

Yesterday I got to hang out with a friend whom I didn't really know very well beforehand - she's been more my sister's friend up til now - and it was nice to get to know her a bit better.

Yesterday I also got a new laptop and a monitor, YAY! And just in time, too - my old lappy was becoming more and more decrepit. For the last few weeks, if it ever tried to do anything, it had to access the harddrive fifty bajillion times first, during, AND after. I thought maybe it was using the swap space too much - which says bad RAM to me - but dad thinks maybe it's just retries because it has bad sectors on the harddrive as it is, so maybe the harddrive is finally giving up the ghost. I'm hoping for the latter; as long as the RAM is still good, I'm happy, cos my old one has 3 gigs (a stick of 1, and a stick of 2), so if the new one also comes with 3 (cos I haven't checked yet - I'll do that tonight probably), I'll swap out the 1 for the old one's 2, making 4 in the new one. Mmmm hardware. And the RAM should be compatible - they're both Lenovos, one's the T61 and the other's the T61p - so I see no reason why it shouldn't work. *Crosses fingers*
Which brings me to the question of what OS I should put on it. I was considering Linux Mint for a while, cos Ubuntu's pissing me off, just a little; but I may just bite the bullet and give it Ubuntu 13.04 Raring. I stuck with 11.04 (Natty) for quite a long time, and now they've "stopped supporting it", of course - but on the other hand, 12 and up are Steam-compatible. I mean... I'm not interested in starting gaming... at all... no... um. All I know for sure is that I refuse to have Windows anywhere near it.

Anyways, my plan for today is to go to the butcher's and buy a haggis (because I want haggis for no apparent reason, and I know it's not paleo, but I refuse to make an excuse for this; haggis is its own excuse, in my opinion) and have that for dinner while cleaning my house and possibly putting some OS or other (meaning probably Ubuntu Raring) on my new laptop... and I may even make this Goth-Upkeep Day and recolour my hair. Maybe. I could probably last a couple weeks more if I wanted to, so it's not imperative that I recolour it this week, I just feel like it's almost that time again.

Final thoughts: you know you're on Reddit too much when you find that people ask the same questions and make the same comments over and over - and you know you've been on Reddit too long when people start nostalgically referencing stuff that you saw when it was first posted. Yeah.

So. Back to work.
Toodles, all.

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!

Adventures in Dying

No, that's not dying as in death.
That's dying as in colouring fabric with dye.

Last week I decided that some linen needed to be blue to make a new medieval short-sleeved overgown to go with my current green one - or to be worn separately if it's warm out. However, no blue linen existed in my house, though I had a fair quantity of white. It was decided (by me) that dye was cheaper than more fabric, as well as more efficient since I already had enough fabric, just not the right colour.
So I bought the blue, and while I was at it, I bought some black dye too. Not predictable at all, right? (laughs at self)
I also went to VV Boutique and picked up a 2-3 gallon pot for use exclusively for such things - I didn't want to ruin my good pots!

Friday night I did the blue. Somehow the Dye Gods were with me and it came out pretty much exactly the colour I wanted, which is rather unexpected for a first time dying. Though I did get a couple blotchy spots, which is unfortunate but can be worked around.

This afternoon I did the black stuff. I still had a fair length of the lime-green linen left over from the afore-mentioned green medieval dress, and I had at least a good 4-5 metres of a mauve silk that (if I recall correctly) was a lucky acquisition from a thrift store, both of which seemed like they'd be better in black. They're currently hanging to dry so I can see exactly what colours they came out before I run them properly through the wash; I'm still afraid that the lime-green will come out dark brown and the silk will be a dark purple - there's not much risk of it, but I'm still terrified that it'll be one of those unexpected results.

Honestly, though, dying fabric is a daunting undertaking for a perfectionist. Depending on the fibre type and the method used and the length of time in the dyebath and the concentration of the dyebath and the size and permeability of the length of fabric - well, let's just say the results are not always exactly what you want them to be. This is stressful for me as a perfectionist, because I want to know that it will come out this way if I do these things, and there just really is no way to do that.

So that's adventures in dying. Now to wait for the two black (I hope) pieces to dry.

Toodles all.

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.