Society for Aesthetic Deletions

Finally updated portions of my website, so you won't get the directory listing. I still need to do that for the rpgs section of my site, but that'll come eventually.

Been reading about other weblog possibilities, like greymatter. But for now, I think I'm fine with blogger. It does what I need it to do, and with running three (yipe!!) games, I don't have time to fiddle, or something will suffer.

I also added some navigation buttons to most of the subdirectory pages. The Mall of Julia page and the 2nd Floor rpg page won't get those, but the rest should. Color will be difficult, because most of the other pages have odd colors. But I've gone with a red icon/text, which will cause problems only on my Aberrant page (which was also a blog), which hasn't been updated in forever. It doesn't matter now, that game will be ending soon. It may start again at a future date, but who knows?

Right now, I'm also getting ready for a new game on Monday nights. Pat's going to be running a Forgotten Realms D&D 3e game. Lou will be starting up an Aberrant game of his own once the Thursday game ends, but this one will be every other Tuesday. Got a concept already, and I'm very glad we talked him out of his original concept for how the game will begin. That started at ACN, and continued on the way home.

Lou's mom asked him yesterday if we'd be willing to use up some of our vacation next year doing something. We go to the Cape with them every year for a weekend in February/March, as part of a Christmas present. This past year they hinted at possibly going somewhere else. I'm willing to burn a few more days of vaca, especially since we're not going to ACN next year (Lou doesn't need to go as Nine Princes in Hong Kong ended this year). I was hoping to maybe make ACUS, but if we go somewhere else that's cool, I'll deal.

Enough blathering.

Ian got adopted! By two adorable kittens.

Hack (ne Herbie) and Velvet (neé Peaches) are teaching Ian what it means to be owned by cats. Well, that's another one down. Jack got adopted just over two years ago.

I'm hoping to get it for a Christmas present this year. If not, I may pool Christmas and birthday money to get one after Christmas. We have too many shows to tape, and since we upgraded to digital cable, we can't program our box to automatically switch channels to another one to tape the next show.

Which means our annual trip to North Carolina for Thanksgiving is going to be a time of little or no recording. Which is a MAJOR bummer, but we'll just have to deal.

Or set up a tape schedule with friends, to get them to tape some shows while we tape others. Hmm...

When is The Tick supposed to start, anyway? Oh, thank $diety, November 8th. About frelling time!

(this is not to be confused with TurkeyCon, a LAN Party site. Lucinda & Grant coined the name years ago, but it is an informal gathering of friends.)

Getting ready to head to North Carolina. We leave early Saturday morning for our annual visit to friends for Thanksgiving. We're taking Jack with us, and picking Alex up on the way. At the Walt Whitman rest stop, if you can believe that. It makes better sense for all of us to do that, since he lives on Long Island. It'll save a lot of time on both parts. And with Jack's EZ Pass and BP gas cards, we should have a pleasant trip.

I just wish I could read in the car. I sometimes get sick, though it's happening less often now, so I may be in luck. I'm bringing books just in case, including the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

That was Grant's message to me, since I haven't updated my blog since before we went to his house for Thanksgiving.

So, the trip went well, fun was had by all, and the only illnesses were strep, and that was by the Gainey's, and mostly after we'd left.

Lou and I kept ourselves awake during the last bit of the drive back (stuck in Connecticut just past New York City in rush hour traffic) with our silly car license plate game. No, not one where you find all the different states/provinces you can. We started this one day as a lark, I forget why or who. But we pick the license plates with three letters in them, pretend it's an acronym, and come up with what those three letters stand for. Such as GOO - Generic Ocelot Offering.

Jack participated too, and we came up with the definitive acronym, which must become a game. KYA - Kill Your Ancestors. Some sort of card game where you're a nihilist or a disgruntled youth who thinks things would be better if you were never born, nor your parents nor theirs! So you go back in time (using Cheapass Games' time machine from Patent #1, no doubt), and kill your ancestors! Probably some sort of card game where you try to get rid of all your cards. Jack and Lou are thinking of how this would work.

Oh, and I should probably point out that it's my birthday today. Happy Birthday to me!

I wonder how many people get the Sewer Urchin joke in the header? Wish they could have kept him on the live action Tick.

Why do they always come in pairs?

Good news first. I got back my latest test results on my C1 Esterase Inhibitor Deficiency. My levels have been normal for two years, so I can start weaning off the Zyrtec I've been taking. The Zyrtec should have had no impact upon my condition, but it did. My allergist had one other patient when I first went to him with this, and when I went for my check up last year, he had a few more. All of us are treatable with antihistimines (I think the other patients were using Claritin, but my GP had given me Zyrtec first, so we kept me on that), and our conditions have stabilized.

My allergist said that he's been going to seminars and lectures on my condition, and has learned that it can wax and wane, and also can clear itself up. Since I've been fine for two years now, we're trying to take me off the Zyrtec and see how it goes. If it returns, then I'll go back on the antihistimine and get more bloodwork done, no doubt. But here's hoping it never returns!

Bad news next. Brian is leaving. Brian has been my co-worker for over a year now, almost a year and a half. He's been across the hall from me since he started. We have the same interests in TV, movies, action figures, comics, everything. And now he's leaving. To go work for another part of Brown, but since we're off-campus and he's on-campus, I doubt we'll see each other much. They offered him a LOT of money to take the job, and he couldn't pass it up. Even though I think it'll drive him crazy...it's a management position, not a hands-on position. But hey, if they offered me that kind of money, I'd probably have taken it too.

So now we're our our database developer (or will be, in three weeks), at the time we're rolling out our new contact database system. His position is going to be TOUGH to fill. In more ways than one.

Well, at least I get to bug the hell out of him until he goes. And I'll poke him to use Trillian on the new location (the office he's in uses all Windows machines) so we can chat at work.

Waaaaah! Who am I going to talk Alias, Buffy, Angel, Roswell, Justice League, The Tick, and all those shows with daily???

Christmas went well. We did get the trip to Las Vegas from Lou's parents that I was expecting. Instead of the annual trip to the Cape in February/March, all of us are heading to Las Vegas for a week. Should be fun!

I got other stuff as well, most of which I'd asked for. And the stuff I didn't specifically ask for was very much appreciated. I did get a folding keyboard for my Palm, which also made me realize that the Memo pad has a size limit on it. I was typing the background for my Miss Amaryllis character in Pat's new game on Monday nights. I don't know whether I should bother to try and create web page for this character/game or not, though. I may throw one together, just so I can post her background up.

Finished The Curse of Chalion last night. Excellent book - LMB has outdone herself. I anxiously await the sequel, which will come after the next Miles book.

We have a new paper towel dispenser in the bathroom at work. This may not sound like much, but for the past few months, we've been making to with a huge roll of paper towels on the counter. Not even sheets, just a big roll. You'd get your hands wet, then have to try and unroll paper with wet hands and tear it off. It was a mess.

Before that, our towel dispenser had a button and a lever on it. I don't know why, but you had to push the button in, then pull down on the lever. It gave you like two pulls of paper, which was nowhere near enough to dry wet hands. Maybe if we just ran them under the water and then shook half the water off, it'd have been enough. So you had to push the button and pull down on the lever again...

So anyway, we now have a new dispenser, with no button, just a lever. Ah, bliss.

You know how they say things come in threes? Well, I've just had that proven right.

Earlier this week, I was asked if I was interested in helping moderate a mailing list I joined some months ago, the DM Advice list. It was mentioned on Role-Playing Tips' weekly newsletter. The moderators realized that they couldn't keep up since the advertisement had brought in a LOT of new members, so they asked me and one other person (another woman, actually!) to help them moderate. I took a few days to consider, since the list was in the middle of a flamewar at the time, but I said yes.

Then, today, I am replying to a message on evolt. One guy sees my reply, answers me offlist, and points to his own site, because he notes that I do a lot of role-playing and run a convention. So I check it out, and it's a cool gaming site. I'd originally thought it was computer games, and it does do some of that, but only in the RPG sense. The guy asks me if I'll write for him, and I say I'll consider it.

The third thing was not less than two hours later, I get an invite to be on the editorial staff of Dreamscribe, which is the newsletter/zine of Dreamlyrics, where I run my TBE game. I thought about this, but decided to decline the offer. I just don't want to start that up and then have no time to help out...especially if I want to get serious about my writing again (which I have been considering, and I really do want to...back in that groove again, I think).

I just have to find the frelling time to do it.

Lou doesn't have strep. Yay! I have to go to his doctor's office this afternoon and get a note so he can go back to work tomorrow. I haven't had to have a doctor's note like that since I went back to school my junior year in high school, after I got the chicken pox. I still had some scars, but was no longer contagious. But the school secretaries didn't believe me, and I had to get a note!

I don't recall whether or not I actually went back to school that day after getting a note or whether, by the time I got it, I just stayed home. Sometimes, it was a good idea to go to a school that was 25 minutes away by car...

I was asked today if we had a laptop available for a co-worker. He will eventually get a TiBook, but now he gets whatever we have available ready now.

Why does this bother me? Because the only reason this guy is getting a laptop is because my big boss said so. And my boss said so because the guy mentioned that he had another job offer, and was seriously considering it. So he gets a laptop, to take notes in meetings in this office, not because he's going to be traveling or anything. But because he's going to be in meetings to take notes.

And my PCD has still not gone up to Brown's HR because of the big boss needing to talk to our Executive Director.

That does it. I'm going to start looking for another job. Maybe if I get an offer, they'll work on getting me more money and a job description that actually says what I do, rather than one that says part of it.

...especially when your net connection is down. Ours was out from sometime on Wednesday (we only checked Wednesday night) until Thursday afternoon, so I was forced to sit at home and watch TV. And there wasn't much good on!

So I worked on balancing the checkbook a little, and going through the bills. I wasn't sick enough that I couldn't concentrate...otherwise that would have been frelling dren. And fortunately I'd loaded the last two chapters of Draco Sinister to my hard drive. Got tired of reading them online, so I copied and pasted them into TextEdit on the iBook. Now I could actually read them in bed!

So, I get the 'net connection back, read emails that have been piling up (oh, have to remember to switch the Amber Mailing List over to another account, or quit it, since mediaone.net is going bye-bye), and then I go back to download the five available chapters of Cassie's next novel, Draco Veritas, and then find out that there are fifteen more chapters to go! That she hasn't written yet! ARGH! Must Read Very ... S...L...O...W...L...Y...

It was 35 years ago today that Virgil "Gus" Grissom, Roger Chaffee, and Edward White died in the capsule of the Apollo 1. I hadn't even been conceived yet, but my parents were living in Huntsville, Alabama at the time, home to Space Camp now.

My dad worked on all the Apollo missions, and the Saturn missions before that, through subcontracting at IBM. We had all the Apollo mission patches on the wall when I was growing up, and some Saturn ones and a picture of a Saturn launch. Later, we had some Skylab patches, but I don't know if my dad actually worked on that or just got the patches.

My dad died on July 4, 1984, in the summer between my junior and senior years of high school. I had a French exchange student staying with me for a month or so that summer too, and this was about three-quarters of the way through her stay.

Looking back, I wish I'd gotten to know my dad better. He was a private man, not one for sharing (which is pretty surprising, since he had 7 children *chuckle*), and I was a kid, the sixth of the seven. He'd shown me how to change the oil on the cars, put the lights on the Christmas tree, how to navigate using the map on road trips, how to not step on my younger sister when she was sleeping in the bean bag chair (the one and only time I can remember being spanked).

But I never asked him what he did at his job, or if I did, I don't remember it. We rarely talked; it just wasn't his way, or mine at the time. I've picked up one of his bad habits - we used to have to stand in front of him and the television to tell him that dinner was ready if Mom asked us to; shouting never mattered. He'd tune us out and only breaking his view was the only way to catch his attention. I do that now, though not just with TV, with anything that has my attention at the moment, even my own thoughts.

I wish I had gotten to know him better. Asked him about the Apollo missions (I know what part he worked on - in all those "view back at the Earth" shots where the huge black ring spins away -- the instrument section -- that was what he worked on), about what he did as an engineer for IBM, working on the Trident submarines (the reason why we moved to Rhode Island, he worked out of the Navy base in Middletown). He was smart and talented and my father.

And I miss him terribly.

Ian just told me he's going to Hong Kong for two weeks. Grandmother's 85th birthday party. And hey, if you're going halfway around the world, why not take some time and browse?

Of course, we'll be in Vegas for a week during that time as well. So fun vacations all around!

Watched Buffy on FX (The Wish!) and Buffy on UPN and Smallville on WB last night. Will find time today to post about them on my new pop culture blog. If not today, tonight.

Busy busy today! Web server won't keep serial number, so won't stay running. Have put Kate onto it. Hopefully She Will Find Solution.

Also have to Set Up iBook lab. Have reformatted mine own iBook. Much gnashing of teeth, but it is Not Really Mine. Gives more impetus to get Toshiba this weekend.

And Really Must stop Typing This Way. Have been Reading V. Secret Diaries too Often.

Kate asked me yesterday to take a picture of her with the digital camera we have at work. So I took a few, we found one we liked, and I (using OSX and iPhoto) downloaded it and mailed it to her.

She tells me this morning that the photo will be published in a national magazine (it was the only one big enough -- we took it at 1600x1200). With my name as the credited photographer. Cool, I think. What magazine, I ask.

The Advocate, she replies.

I'm going to be an internationally published photographer! Whoo-hoo! Name in the credits and EVERYTHING.

Well, she asked them to put my name in, all spelled correctly and everything.

We'll just have to see if it pans out. Oh, and the article in the mag is going to be about this.

Anne and I finally got together for a Chow Yun Chat last night. We sat and talked and and played with Will, and ate Chinese food. Tim is a driver for Dominos part-time now, and with the Pats in the SuperBowl, all drivers were on.

Go Pats!

Then, while we debated about what to do after Will went to bed, I browsed the video and DVD collection. And realized that while they had The Frighteners on video letterboxed, they hadn't opened it yet. Anne and Tim saw Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring while on vacation in Florida, but they had not seen one of Peter Jackson's earlier films! So though I'd seen part of it recently on cable, we put it in.

Anne really enjoyed it, and I got to watch it all the way from beginning to end for the first time since I'd first seen it. It's really a fun, cool flick.

And as to the name? I forget exactly where it began -- Anne and I went to see a movie together at some point, I don't know if it was a Chow Yun-Fat movie or not, but the display where you buy the tickets had his name listed as "Chow Yun Chat." We found it really amusing, and adopted it as our name for our girl-get-togethers.

It's been happening a lot to me lately. The stars must be aligned in the right order or some such.

In my weekly D&D game, the group just went into a desert area. (I still need to write up the game summary for that; maybe tomorrow night) An NPC met them there, and he told them that there was an oasis nearby, where they could rest.

So I start humming that mid-70's song, "Midnight at the Oasis." It gets stuck in my head, though I really don't recall all the words, just the opening line. I do recall the tune. This past Saturday, on the way to get my new laptop, the song is still in my head, and I sing the first few lines. Lou looks at me like I have grown a second head - I'm quite used to that look, actually. So I ask him what is it this time. He wants to know what I'm singing. I rattle off the lines and the tunes a bit more, but I'm still getting that look.

He's never heard the song. What?? This song was all over the radio as I was growing up, I think. He may be two years younger than me, but come on!

Of course, I should point out that I think my dad had different musical tastes. We had an album, called "Good Vibrations" - one of those you'd buy on TV I think. It had "Dead Skunk (in the Middle of the Road)" amongst others on it. Now my dad also loved Spike Jones and his City Slickers, and big band music.

Anyway, to get back to the synchronicity...today I am helping my boss Kate set up OSX on her computer. She's having problems getting Eudora for X to work with Brown's Kerberos settings. She has to go into a meeting, so I volunteer to finish the setup while she's meeting.

She has a stack of CDs next to her computer. Kate has a lot of CDs, we share some musical tastes, but not all. This stack is different in that it is psychedelic, it has a collection of music from the 70s on it. Five or so CDs. I start looking at the backs of the CDs, and start remembering all the songs from my youth.

Of course, as you know if you've read this far, the last CD contains "Midnight at the Oasis" as sung by Maria Muldaur. I borrow the CD, intending to rip the track so Lou can hear it, and of course he'll recognize it once it's sung by someone with better musical talent (well, not that much better) than me.

My husband doesn't think of himself as extremely romantic. When I asked him a few of the questions from last week's Friday Five, he could not come up with one romantic thing that he had done. Maybe it was just being put on the spot. But he is a very romantic man. He's the one who remembers what we did on our first date, what we were wearing then, the one who remembers our anniversaries (and no, I do remember our wedding anniversary too, he just remembers other important dates).

We also have this tradition of not giving each other a Valentine's Day present. We do cards, but that's it. So earlier this week, when I find out that he did more than a card for this Valentine's Day, he caves in and gives me this, as a "Tuesday" present.

So now I have to get him something! I found a cute baby Gund Snuffles in white, and gave it to him yesterday as a "Happy Wednesday" present. And the cards were today.

He got one on his pillow this morning, after he got out of bed first. I had put them at my bedside last night for just such an occasion. And I found one on my pillow when I got back from my bathroom ablutions.

And then I found one on top of my lunch today when I unzipped my lunch bag. So romantic, see?

I wonder if I'll have one when I get home tonight. Lou's getting his other card then, the more suggestive one. (heh heh heh)

How does one "play" at catching up? It's much more "work" than play. Though I suppose it really depends on what you're trying to catch-up on.

First day at work was yesterday. You'll note the lack of blog entry. It was a busy day, starting with a morning-long meeting for everyone at work. I went late to the first half, and skipped the second. I had too much email to catch up on, and while talking about the ESEA, since it allows me to have my job, is a good thing, I had too much work to catch up on to spend all that time in a talking heads meeting.

And I got to role-play last night! Pat's game, wherein I'm playing a monk. I realized on the way back from Vegas that Lou and I had talked about doing some role-playing (no, not THAT kind! get your frelling mind out of the gutter...) while we were out there, but it never even crossed our minds. Well, it didn't cross mine.

I'm eager for ATF this week. I'm having a lot of fun revealing little bits of Tallis' background, and trying to rein myself in from doing it all at once. It's bad when a GM gets too excited about an NPC. I do NOT want him to be the star, or even a central point. But I think he's just so COOL. Then again, it's been a while since I've had a really angsty character, so this is my outlet. And I trust my players to whap me on the head if I go overboard.

Okay, it's been published!!

Online, you can only see the photo and no credit.

But if you peruse the March 5, 2002 issue of The Advocate (on newsstands now!), turn to page 16. Look at the bottom right, outside the box of the article.

There's my name. Photo credit for that photo of my boss, Kate Monteiro, in her "other life" as president of the Rhode Island Alliance for Lesbian and Gay Civil Rights. (okay, the website's nothing great to look at, but hey, they spend their time out there working hard, not designing web pages)

So now I just have to parlay this into another job...a well-paying (snarf!) one.

Lou went to see the doctor yesterday. Since late in our trip to Vegas, the upper part of his right arm was hurting him. It only really hurt when he moved it, or if someone touched or hit him there. But Bengay and Mineral Ice didn't help, and Advil only kept the pain at bay a short time. So he decided to go to the doctor finally, and went yesterday.

She took blood (Lou didn't pass out nor hit her - he has a fear of needles), touched his arm a lot asking "Does this hurt?" (and again, Lou managed not to hit her when she found a painful spot), took X-Rays, and scheduled him for a CT scan, at 10:00 tonight.

There is a bump on his bone. It could be nothing to worry about, or it could be some complicated medical term that means he has a bone infection.

Let's all cross our fingers.

UPDATE 6:45 p.m.: Lou's appointment is NEXT Thursday. He wants me to go with him. He says he's had CT scans done before, and it wipes him out, so he wants me to bring him home.

This American Life had a segment this week (last week? I heard it today) about superpowers. And if you had to pick between flight and invisibility, which would you chose and why?

Discuss.

Well, today is the day for my job audit. I meet with the interviewer (auditor?) at 2:30.

It should go pretty well, I think. I just have to tell her that the job I'm doing now is SO much more than my PCD (Position Content Document, aka Brown's version of a job description). Kate prepped me a little, advised me on what to emphasize and what not to emphasize.

Kate says this is pretty much a formality, but I'm just happy it's getting done. It's been just about a year since my last review, wherein I listed all the things I was doing that were OUTSIDE of my PCD, and in the Sys Admin PCD instead.

Fortunately, if it all goes through, they backdate the pay through the date they received the request. Which unfortunately for me is only January 31. But it's January 31, and not today! So that's good.

Here's hoping! Cross some fingers for me, okay? Or pray if you do that. :)

[It may not be Wil Wheaton's 7 things that I'm thankful for, but here it is.]

Enough people have asked that I should post.

Lou's CT scan went fine. In fact, if he had not let himself get all worked up about it (which he really only lets happen with doctor's visits), and stopped and thought about it, he'd have realized it wasn't going to be invasive.

See, the last time he had a CT scan done, it was when he had kidney stones. He actually passed the stone, but they did the scan to make sure there was no damage done. They gave him an IV with the radioactive dye or whatever it is that would allow his guts to show up on the scan. And this wiped him out the next day, he felt all ill and such.

This time, it wasn't internal. It was on his upper arm, on the bone. No need for dye. So we went to the hospital for our 10:00 p.m. appointment, and got there early. Waited a bit (I brought a book), then went down to the next area with him. Waited some more. He went into the room alone, and had the scans done. Came back out, all fine, realized if he'd bothered to think or done some research he would have saved himself a lot of worry, then we went home.

I crashed, he was wired, so read for a bit. But see? No IV, no nothing. Just a scan.

By the way, the blood tests came back all normal, so no infection. We'll just have to see what the scan results say. He also says his arm doesn't hurt as much, which is good.

I just hope this isn't one of those things where they don't know what the problem is, and it goes away on its own.

Letter Games

Trolling the net netted the above link, which is a good sum-up of what Letter Games are all about.

The book mentioned, Sorcery and Cecelia, was published as a result of a Letter Game between Caroline Stevermer and Patricia Wrede. It's out of print and hard to find, but will be reprinted next Spring.

The basics are this, however: Two (or more, but two is probably good to start) authors write letters from one character's perspective to the other character. A setting is established, and a general world-type view is agreed-upon. And lastly, the characters must never, ever meet up.

Then, through these letters back and forth, each writer works on their own character's plot, sometimes providing advice or help for the other characters, even on occasion adding a bit of background to the other character (something along the lines of -- "Remember when you fell in the pond when you were 8? I tried to pull you out, you pulled me in instead, and we were both in bed for weeks? They thought you were going to die, but I was certain you would pull through, and you did. Has that cough ever cleared up?"). As you can see, there does have to be a certain amount of trust between the authors.

Using the blog interface, one can have multiple authors in one blog working on their own Letter Game. Or, two people who have their own blogs could write letters in their own, and link to their co-author's page for the next in the series. It seemed a wonderful extension of the Letter Game, making it public for all to watch and comment on.

I think Anne and I may start using the children of characters from the original fantasy game Lou ran. Anne got to play Kit for a brief time in the sequel to the original game (before pregnancy and child-caring for pulled her away), but I haven't done anything with Brianna's child. I'm not even sure what sex it'll be (I'm leaning toward male at this point).

Or we'll decide to do something altogether new. Probably not Amber-style, though. Anne has only played in one ADRPG game, and hasn't read the books. :)

So, any takers? Meera looks like she got some of her own already. I'm willing to give folks logins to my Whitespace blog, or set up another one. Want to be the hostess with the mostess, that's me.

I just got "unofficial" notice (the letter will arrive later this week, no doubt) that my revised PCD has gone through, as did my job upgrade. Which means I am now a 9E (as opposed to an 8E), and I am getting a 15% increase in pay to go along with that grade increase.

Go me!

And I am hoping that I will still get the raise from the upcoming performance review. Kate believes this will be so, because the pay is backdated to February 1. If it had been March (evaluations take place in April, with increases usually in May or June, I forget), then it would be less likely.

So now I can try to climb out of debt quicker (ha!). But it also makes the lunch that Lou and I are doing at Little Chopsticks a celebratory one!

(...Julia does little dance of joy around the office...)

I haven't really felt like blogging about this, but I do feel I should make some note.

Lou's grandmother, Frances G. Evans, affectionately known as Nana, passed away a week ago today. She was 86. We got a phone call last Friday night that she had gone into a coma, and then the call Saturday morning that she had died.

Nana Evans was one of those crochety old Irish grandmothers - liked her drinks, liked her smokes (she smoked up until about a year or so ago, and was last year diagnosed with lung cancer, which was what helped claim her life), liked to hear gossip (though she'd never admit it), liked to complain, and loved her family. She also hated being unable to care for herself, hated being unable to walk up and down stairs without help, hated having to rely on others for things that she used to be able to do just fine. In the past few years, she had given up on trying to live - she wasn't doing anything other than what was required, not having the joy of life anymore. The mood increased after the lung cancer diagnosis, but there was something else along with it. An attitude of "I told you so, I told you there was something wrong with me, see!" that lurked under the surface. Never voiced, yet there nonetheless.

We had a memorial mass for her on Thursday. It was a very amusing thing to see this very lapsed Catholic leading the family of non-Catholics (or also very lapsed Catholics) in what Lou terms as Catholocize - the sit-stand-sit-kneel-stand motions that I went through weekly for the first 17 or so years of my life. I'm sure Nana would have laughed at us, all confused.

The mass was followed by a few words from the priest at the gravesite, and then it was to a local restaurant for food, drink, and conversation. We all sat, reminisced, learned some about the family history, and then headed home.

Lou hasn't really reacted to this, not like I was expecting. I think he'd accepted it was coming long ago, and as she accepted it was going to happen, so did he.

No tears, just a fond farewell.

It's snowing outside. It's been doing it all morning.

The original forecast for today was some snow, changing to rain, and then lots of rain.

They changed it sometime in the night. Temperatures are not expected to rise. So we get 1-2 inches of snow.

In March.

On March 18, to be exact.

This is about as much snow as we here in Southern New England have had all year.

It won't last past Wednesday, as temps are going to climb into the 40s.

I thought it was supposed to snow in New England...it USED to.

Global Warming, anyone?

It didn't last much past last night. The only places the snow still exists are on top of cars that weren't cleaned off, or on grass/trees/bushes that haven't yet had the chance to melt it away.

Ah well. At least I got to throw a couple of wet snowballs to the first-floor's dog last night. But she didn't try to catch them. Poor Bailey -- she belongs the type of people about whom I have pet peeves.

We'll get some flurries this morning and maybe some tomorrow, but then rain.

Isn't March supposed to go out like a lamb?

Having not been to weigh in since February 6, before our trip to Vegas, Lou and I were expecting the worst.

And were both totally shocked, when I had stayed the same and he was only up one pound. Lou was expecting a 10 pound increase, with allowances for more.

So we celebrated, and went to Applebee's last night. We had terrible service at our local Applebee's a few weeks back, and our friends had similar problems a few days later. We thought we'd give them another try, on a less busy night and an earlier time.

Well, the waiter was more attentive, but we never got our appetizer and my steak wasn't medium, like Lou's was, but medium-well.

We aren't writing them off just yet, but we may have to find another location than the one in town to frequent.

We skipped out on the meeting after the weigh-in. Lou has developed an aversion to the meetings; I don't know why, and neither does he. And to top it off, yesterday was "Easter Bonnet" day, which I have been fortunate to miss, since Lou went to his first before I started going with him (he and his mother started about a year before I joined).

We love our leader, June Gesner. We really do. But sometimes, things just go a bit overboard, and we must flee.

Now it'll be interesting to see how we do at next week's weigh-in.

My new laptop has a SmartMedia slot. This was sorta cool when I bought it, but not the main reason I bought it. The Firewire port was the main reason.

Or so I thought...

We have a very nice digital camera at work. I made us buy a nice one, going on two years ago now. We had money we had to spend, and the only camera we had was an Olympus that didn't even have a zoom feature. It wasn't really good for taking shots in schools, which is where it was used most often.

So I looked at what was on the market, what was somewhat compatible with what we had, and made a recommendation, which was approved.

We became the proud owners of an Olympus C-2100 Ultra Zoom, a camera that came with optical zoom as well as digital zoom, plus lots of other goodies.

This camera uses SmartMedia as its save source.

It is very easy to take pictures with the camera, and then remove the card and place it in the slot on my laptop, and download the images to disk. In fact, I realize now that the "D:" drive on my computer, all this time, has been that slot, waiting to be filled.

I SO know what sort of digital camera I'll be getting now.

So now, we have an easy way for me to take pictures of my kittens, and you can compare them to other people's kittens, and see whose is cuter. (heh)

I also have pictures from our trip to the Cape last weekend. Not many, but a few. This was when I truly discovered the use of that little slot on the left-hand side of the laptop. Those will probably be posted someday.

And sorry for the artsy-ness of the thumbnails. I was trying to be funky with Photoshop. And SO did not like their automatic web photo gallery feature.

I have been eating the chocolate eggs that folks brought in as leftovers from Easter all morning. Admittedly, I've only had three of those candy-coated milk chocolate eggs, one peanut M&M, and three of the Nestle Nest Eggs (one each-Krackle, Peanut Butter, and Caramel), but they are filling.

I have a Salisbury Steak WW meal heating in the microwave. I love Salisbury Steak (though the real one is my preference, not the WW version). But I just can't get enthused.

Too much chocolate.

Won't stay the same at WW this week, methinks.

I have Breakfast Club in 10 minutes (monthly gathering of everyone who's in at work to have food and talk about birthdays and promotions and babies...social stuff).

At 10:00, I have our two-hour monthly tech division meeting.

At 1:30, I have a two-hour Introduction to PHP class.

Following that, I may go see my former co-worker Brian, and/or head to the mall for some new books to read.

Then it's Weight Watchers weigh-in, followed by a fattening dinner somewhere.

Which does remind me of one thing I wanted to blog about...

Weight-loss costs now deductible. You need to keep a seriously itemized list, and be at least 30 lbs. overweight to qualify. And be under a doctor's care. But hey, it's a start.

I'm really getting frelling annoyed by losing posts in the MT box. It's not MT's fault, it's mine.

I really wish I knew enough Perl to be able to hack BlogScript/mt-xmlrpc.cgi to include titles. Categories are optional, but would be nice for some of my blogs.

ANYWAY...

I was out from work yesterday, hence no blog entries. Just wasn't feeling well, so took the day out to rest up sleep in. Maybe it was the time change, I don't know.

Sunday, Lou and I went out and dropped lots of cash, after eating a nice breakfast out with our friend Pat. Lou reminded me that I wanted to get Virtua Fighter 4, but I have a feeling he was really thinking of getting Jedi Knight II: Outcast, which he'd heard was out on Saturday.

So we went to Toys 'R' Us first, and grabbed Virtua Fighter 4. Then he wanted to go looking for a specific Spawn figure (She-Spawn), and so we went to the mall. Where we promptly bought JK II: Outcast, Heroes of Might and Magic 4, and a Neon Genesis Evangelion figure for me from EB, and then to KB Toys to get the She-Spawn for him.

Of course, in the car on the way home, I check the specs for JK II: Outcast. Hmm...my processor is fine (P2/400 required, I have a P3/450), but my video card is not. Well, we'll just see if it works. My card may be supported, but not on the list, because it says others are supported on their website.

One guess what happened after Lou installed.

So he suggests returning it, and I suggest buying a new video card. We don't need to get top-of-the-line, since I'm using the laptop as my main machine, basically giving him my desktop machine for his gaming needs (those he can't get on the Mac, or just doesn't want to wait for a Mac version of). I tell him it won't be that expensive.

And I start to research, starting obviously with the ones listed on the box. I have a few scary moments, until I realize that my AGP 1x slot can use higher AGP cards (at least, according to some of the websites out there). Then I turn to eBay. I see an auction for a Matrox Millennium G450 card, dual-head (ooh, with a $10 cable I can do video out to a TV!), and it's only $73. PCConnection wants $115. I figure, I'll go as high as $90, with $5 for S&H, that's still $20 cheaper than PCConnection, and the eBay auction is a new card, shrink-wrapped and everything.

I place my bid, and an hour later, I have my card for $83.06, plus $5 S&H (I skipped getting the $3 insurance). It should be here by the end of the week.

Lou and I beat each other senseless with VF4, having a lot of fun punching buttons (who does tutorials? Who reads the books to learn the combos? Not us, at least not at first!) and learning new things. He whips the pants off me at first, and I'm determined that we each play the same character until we've both won one match. I have a lot of trouble with my fave, Sarah Bryant, beating his Vanessa, but eventually I do, and we move on until we've played everyone once.

Then I start playing Blitzball. Yes, I've started playing FFX, and my poor team hasn't won a game yet. We've tied twice -- but I may go back to my previous save, which doesn't have all those terrible losses. I forgot to get an item in an area, and want to get it before I'm forced to move on.

I'm having a terrible time with two of my forwards in Blitzball. Lou had a much better time of it with his team. But damn, if my goalie and one of my defenders aren't the highest levels of anybody! I may need to trade out my forwards if I can't get them up levels, and techniques. (sigh)

I also finished reading an anthology of romance stories last night, and when I have a few minutes, I'll review it on my popblog. Now I can get back to finishing I Dare!

Lou woke me up this morning, too. I was having the oddest dream, and he asked if I was okay. As I was waking up, I realized that I had heard a noise from the area of my stomach, but I ignored Lou and hoped he'd think I was asleep. Then he moved his leg into mine, and I had to ask what was up. He asked again if I was okay, and I said yes. Turns out my stomach had been making the strangest noises this morning, loudly and quite a few times. Lou had forgotten to set his alarm, but my stomach was able to fill that task, it appears. My alarm was set and would have gone off in a few minutes anyway.

Well, gurgling still beats his talking in his sleep. Though with us on the same sleep schedule the past few years, I haven't heard anything really amusing in quite a while. My friends know of the two phrases that were the most memorable, and keep reminding him of one on occasion.

But I won't post them here. He'll be terribly embarrassed. Even if he doesn't read the blog.

I get to move into a new office today. Well, probably over the next few days. The guy who moved on left a lot of stuff in there, and I need to get that all out, and possibly move desks around, before I can really move in.

Plus we need to keep his two computers up and running so others can access it. Right now, my boss is futzing around with one of the computers, so I really can't just move it, alas.

But here is what I'm going into:

View from the Door

View from the Door 2

View to the Door

Window View

Window View 2

Yes, I get a window that doesn't look out onto another office! Even if it will take me days to move in, I will be there!

It's very hot out today.

My Son of Weather Grok tells me, in the cities that I track, that it is 90 in New Bedford (closest to where I live), 96.1 in New York City (Central Park, where Ian and Jeanne live or work), 93 in Concord, NH (where Jack lives), 90 in Raleigh (where Grant lives), and 91.9 in Providence, where I work.

Wow. I'm glad I'm working in air conditioning today. And I've got most of the stuff out of Philip's office, in preparation for the move tomorrow.

And one of our new employees (the one to replace Philip, actually!) starts Monday. I need to be vacated so she can have my office by then.

Wheeeee!

No blogging today. I officially started the move to the new office by moving the computer over. That pretty much did it for me; now I have to move everything in. I should have it done by noon-ish tomorrow, I think.

I took some preliminary pictures, which will be posted tomorrow, hopefully with some pictures of it all done.

I didn't eat lunch today because of the move. I got busy, and then wasn't hungry. About 2:30 I had an apple from lunch, and went downstairs to get a Diet Coke (a buck for can? I thought it was 80 cents. Never buying from there again...even 80 cents was pushing it).

I'm home now, curled up on the loveseat with the laptop in my lap, Beana looking cheesed at me because of said laptop, and getting ready to watch The Wish on Buffy on FX. Some bad news - I found out my Farscape tape from Friday didn't work. I accidentally set it for a.m. instead of p.m., and then had it for 8:00 a.m. anyway. so even if that had been right, it wouldn't have taped the right show. I'm bummed, but it's just one more reason to get TiVo in a few months.

Anyone want to give me a recap, until I can catch it on a rerun?

We are all creatures of habit. Cats are creatures of habit...it's why, on the weekend you most desperately want to sleep in, the cats are wandering around your head, making sure you're not dead. You're usually up by now, and "it's different, they don't like it", to paraphrase my local group of friends.

I hadn't really realized I have habits at work. I have twice now, since moving into my new office, forgotten to bring my Palm home. I had a routine. My new office's arrangement is different, and therefore my routine is not the same, and I forget things.

Like turning off my lights and my radio when I leave. The new locations for these objects haven't made it into my habits yet.

And of course, I have bad habits. One of my behaviors is exhibiting itself in my new office.

When I have something that I need to do, I come up with other things to do instead of the thing I need to do. Not that these other things don't need doing, mind you. It's just something I put off, and now I "want" to do it because it's not the thing I should be doing.

I noticed this behavior in myself probably about 10-13 years ago. I ran a game online on the RPGames Forum in Compuserve. I was not a good GM. I rarely posted after the game got going. And at one point, I watched myself exhibit my avoidance behavior. Every time I sat down at my Amiga 500, telling myself that I was going to write the post, I would look around at my desk, or my room, and suddenly find something else that I had to do, right then. Like clean the desk. Like organize my bookshelf. Like clean the crap that had accumulated on the floor.

I was doing everything I didn't really WANT to do, in order to avoid posting for my game.

That's when I knew I had to stop running the game.

I've noticed this behavior in other things too -- like I needed to write out the checks for our bills a few weeks back. Suddenly, in the guise of searching for all of the ATM/restaurant receipts and misplaced bills on our very messy kitchen counter, I started to clean that counter off of all the junk that had accumulated there.

Typical avoidance behavior, for me. I did do the bills, by the way.

And now, my new office. As you can see by the pictures below, I have a bunch of my stuff on the floor and on m workspace that needs to be cleared off. But what did I do on Friday, when I should have been doing all this cleanup?

• I gave one of our employees a Cube instead of her Bronze Keyboard Powerbook, which I had meant to do the previous Friday, but another laptop going belly-up got in the way. And then I never got back to it the rest of the week.

• I upgraded software and various OS bits on another user's computer, who had asked to have it done days ago, but I just hadn't made it a priority.

• I upgraded the tech staff's admin assistant's computer, when all she had problems with was her email program. I've been meaning to upgrade her computer for months.

Amongst other things I did on Friday.

I left work early yesterday, to be home in time for a package to be delivered. So not much got done in the office yesterday.

I am fully expecting that when I start to clean my office up this week, I will suddenly realize that we have another new employee starting on Monday, and I don't have the office he'll be moving into cleaned out of the stuff that's been stored in there, and I don't have computers ready for him.

Expect more pictures from me in a few weeks.

View from the Door - early
View to the Door - early
The Bookshelf's Location
View from the Door - later
View to the Door - later
The New Work Area

I have some more pictures up on the wall now, but that will have to wait until I've made some more progress on cleaning up the floor.

Instead of cleaning up my office, I've been paying attention to my neglected little blog.

So now, since I went back a while ago and added categories to every post, and now the category is displayed with the post.

I still need to work on the redesign. Maybe in another month or so.

I got an email from a friend yesterday, saying that she was leaving Las Vegas, and coming back home to New England, more specifically, Connecticut, from whence she came.

I don't know what to say. She moved out west to be with someone she'd known online and at various Ambercons for some time, and not long after that, they got married. I'd known that Vegas wasn't the place she wanted to live; I'd teased her often enough that she should come back home, that we missed her, that New England missed her.

I had planned on mailing to her, in a few weeks, some spring leaves, since I'd noticed how non-leafy Vegas is. And then more were going to follow in the fall, with all the autumn colors.

Now, I get an email that says she's moving back. It is unknown if her husband will follow in a year or so. She hopes to be situated by midsummer.

Well. And Well. What does one say to that?

I'm glad she's coming home. But what about her husband? I'd love it for him to come too, unless they're having problems that they can't work out. Las Vegas is his home, it's where he grew up. Connecticut is her home, it's where she grew up (I think...it's home, anyway).

What does one say to these sorts of things? I'm at a loss.

Write a random phrase from each of the following:

Nearest magazine to you:
"If the PCs save Lisa and deliver the Eye to Ganamemnon, they should receive the experience points they would get for defeating both outsiders." (Dungeon Magazine #91, The Rock and the Hard Place D&D Side Trek, by Brian Corvello, pg. 48.)

Nearest book to you:
"I didn't answer. I was thinking about a flamethrower and an M-1 and a couple of cases of ammo. And the liquor, of course." (Oscar Gordon, Glory Road, by Robert A. Heinlein, pg. 91.)

Nearest cd insert:
"The radio bites were recorded during two improv sessions at QED MEDIA CORP. in May, 1994." (Pants, Corky and the Juice Pigs.)

Nearest piece of paper that you wrote on:
13994. (amount of experience we received for tonight's D&D session, in which our 14th (now 15th)-level party defeated an ice paraelemental and a 22nd level villain.)

Nearest piece of paper that was written to you:
Nothing, really. Maybe a receipt, if you want to count that. Or I could find a card in the bedroom. Oh, wait..."Try to use Pattern to find a tavern where we can have an enjoyable fight without breaking people." (note to me as GM, from, I believe Myth as Artor, in my WEF Amber game.)

Courtesy of ***Dave.

Wendi started it, Lisamarie continued it, and Meera responded. Then Kristen angled it, and now I'll take a stab at it.

I hit puberty late. Oh, I shot up in height early on, but the actual menstrual cycle started, IIRC, when I was 14. I had some problems being regular at first, but never any bad cramps or bloating or mood swings, other than the standard teenage ones. But not long after I started, I went on the pill.

No, I was not sexually active -- it was for my acne. My dermatologist recommended a very high estrogen birth control pill to clear up my awful acne problems. Fortunately (or at the time UNfortunately), it was limited to my face. I went to a gynecologist who REALLY didn't like the pill I was on, but she relented enough to let it help me through my high school years.

I had some experiences in college with bad cramps, and used to fake cramps in high school to get out of class, but it was never a really bad problem for me.

I used to never want children. That changed somewhat over the years, and my biological clock ticked awfully loudly for a brief period of time a few years ago, then has been quiescent. I want to have kids, and I realize that I'm getting old to start. But I'm enjoying my life now. To have kids would mean that my whole life would have to change (not only because of them, but because of the kind of parent I want to be), and Lou and I aren't ready for that yet. And I want a house of my own before I have kids. I was raised in one; it's how I want to raise my kids. Even if I have to share it with the bank for 30-50 years first.

I chatted with Anne while she was pregnant and afterwards, and one of the things she said she really didn't miss was the whole "monthly visit from Flo." I don't think I'd miss it at all, either. But I'm not ready to give up on the possibility of children...it's also likely the only way Lou's parents will have grandchildren, though Lou's brother's wife is 10 years younger than me. She's got plenty time to change her mind if she wants to have kids.

And I do think it'd be great for Will to have a playmate. But not just yet, alas, not just yet.

Maybe if we win Powerball on Saturday.

I don't mind being a woman, or all the crap that comes with it. Sure, I'd love equal pay and equal rights and everything, which means the good that comes with it as well as the bad. I also agree with Kristen - if men had to go through what we did each month, they'd have such trouble. There was a comedian who once joked that he would never trust a woman...something that bleeds for a week and doesn't die? Yeah...and if men got pregnant, maternity leave would last from the minute they found out until a year after the baby was born, and would be with full pay.

Umm...I don't know that this is saying what I want it to say, but I'm going to stop now

I just fixed Paula's Palm. It wouldn't wake up.

Of course, she lost everything, but it works now.

I feel so geeky. I have to go put two new computers on the new temp people's desks.

Kate just told me that she wants me to go to the Macworld Conference & Expo in New York in July!

Hella cool!

Of course, it's New York in July, but I'll be inside most of the time.

I don't think I should bring my Toshiba laptop. I'll have to borrow one of work's iBooks or TiBooks, methinks.

Anyone have any recommendations for hotels?

Oh, and sorry for the no-posts yesterday. Was home sick, ears hurting something fierce. Still hurting now, but not so bad.

Lou is home sick today. He left work early to go to the doctor yesterday, and he has some sort of infection in his salivary gland or something like that.

The doctor's advice? Suck on sour candy.

Can't go too wrong with advice like that, eh?

If it continues beyond a day or so, he'll go back for antibiotics. It's affecting his ears and his balance, which is why he's home.

My husband is having the strangest medical things these days.

So, here were the plans for the weekend, and here's how I did:

Friday

• Ian arrives this afternoon, hangs out at the office until Lou picks us up. Well, Ian got here after I sent Lou to pick him up. Doh!

• D&D 3E game tonight. Went somewhat successfully. Got Margaret off the scene for Anne's break this summer. Sent everyone else to flying city, since original plans were sketchy and PCGen kept losing the half-dragon kobold sorcerer's spells.

Saturday

• Breakfast at Percy's with Ian, Jack, and Lou. Done

• Hang around until Feng Shui crowd shows up, then hide in computer room and bedroom. Done. Played and watched lots of Virtua Fighter 4

• Trip to niece's birthday party, where we're going to also give our mother her Mother's Day Present. Done.

• Start on those pesky side quests to gain legendary weapons in FFX. Try really, really, really hard not to throw controller against the wall when I can't get the 0:0:0 time needed to get Tidus' sigil. Did not accomplish any of this. Played some Saturday night, but was trying to capture more creatures than compete in silly Chocobo races.

• Finish reading Living Dead in Dallas so I can start in on Diplomatic Immunity. Did not finish LDiD.

Sunday

• Play more FFX. Read more books. Did not play any FFX. Decided instead to try to start writing story idea in head as I was up at 7:00 and had breakfast date with Pat at 9:00. Ouch. Writing story muscles have atrophied.

• Crew over for the Sunday game. Done. Worried now that husband is going to inflict serious damage on my poor little Shaman, because she summoned her 3 Huge Earth Elementals to beat on bad-guy Ogre Magi Monk, after Finger of Death failed (rolled a razza-frazza 1 on spell resistance check). Whimper.

• Play more FFX. Read more books. Read more of LDiD, but did not finish.

The Black Road is this weekend, so I will be busy this week and weekend, and probably won't get much blogging done. That, and the fact that my boss is going to be away for a week starting tomorrow. Urgh.

Oh, and I have a game tonight, have to decide if I'm going to play in a 7th Sea game on Wednesday night. I'm hoping to fit in Attack of the Clones on Sunday night, post-Con.

But, to tide you over in the meantime, I give you Jecht's Theme, from the Final Fantasy X soundtrack.

This song is bouncy, but with a twang that is all Jecht, since he ain't bouncy at all. Jecht is our hero Tidus' mean old man, who vanished when Tidus was young. He ended up in Spira, where Tidus also ended up, and helped out our heroine Yuna's father, Braska, on his quest to rid Spira of Sin.

Jecht's Theme reminds me of an old style country song, with that guitar twang, but it's much more than that. It is only played in the game when Tidus finds these memory spheres, and replays scenes of Jecht, Braska, and a young Auron on their quest.

Enjoy!

I played some FFX last night. Lou cancelled his Aberrant game, with a headache (sinus headache returning from Saturday) and a desire to see Buffy as it happened (that's my thought).

I am now collecting legendary weapons. I got Wakka's and Rikku's last night, and a few other of the secret bits. Went back to Luca for Wakka's, and decided to go into the Sphere Theater. I'd been there before, but didn't have enough cash to buy anything.

Oh, this is hella cool. You can "buy" any of the FMVs from the disk. I'm assuming ones that you've seen already...I didn't have enough cash to buy them all. Some are short, a few seconds long. Some are longer, like the first part where Sin shows up while Tidus is playing Blitzball (and I can now confirm that the loud rock song on the FFX soundtrack is most definitely from this scene).