Friends

One of the payroll people here at work just came into my office, wondering why they had been paying me as an independent contractor rather than an employee eleven years ago. She'd been cleaning out some old files and discovered my original paystub from way back when I was just supposed to be working here for a few weeks helping out with some random filing.

I have such mixed feelings about my job. It's certainly not anything close to what I expected to do with my life, but at the same time, I've been here for over a third of the time I've spent on this giant ball of rock. I can't say that I like it anymore than I can say that I dislike it, but in so many ways, it's kind of the perfect job for someone with my particular set of skills and habits. Quite frankly, the idea that I should be looking for some other source of employment has never stopped bouncing around in some random corner of my brain, but I can't imagine ever leaving an employer that has promoted me from being a brainless file jockey to being in charge of my own (admittedly rather small) department, while more than tripling my starting salary in just over a decade (and that's even despite the fact that I'm not getting a raise this year due to Bernie Madoff and the shitstorm that is our national economy).

I don't mean to gloat, and I don't mean to whine. But seeing the numbers on that piece of paper really rattled me.

I won a free personal training session today at the gym. Score! I'd been thinking about buying a session, but have been too cheap to do so. I know this is their way of trying to hard sell you into more, but you can't hard sell someone who has no money! Or you can, but it is not going to work on the girl.

NaNoWriMo update- 22K words, last night I banged out almost 3K in a frenzy of trying to get to my plot. I am really enjoying the process again this year, I really like the structure of having to get something done every day. Though that is also a bit of a curse, because I find myself needlessly drawing out some scenes that are utterly useless because I worry that I'll run out of story before I get to the 50,000 word mark. So there will be a lot of editing to do eventually. But tonight I have to commence with the actual adventure! portion of the story and cease wanking on about music. In my imagination, Neutral Milk Hotel has gotten back together.

Also- I am giddy like a little girl for New Moon.

Am I crazy or was that ( spoilers for the Mad Men finale. )

I've just discovered that the top bracket on the right side of my mouth that the "tough elastic" is wrapped around is no longer attached to my tooth. I suspect that this is going to negatively effect my prognosis. GAH!

We'll find out tomorrow when I call and let them know about this unfortunate circumstance.

Touching hay is now causing my hands and arms to break out in hives.

This is... extremely inconvenient.

Friday - I had a bout of gastronomic distress and insomnia the night before, so I called out of work. Friday morning, I played Borderlands. Around 2 o'clock, I thought it would be a good idea to seek lunch. I did not get home until 10pm. I wasted a lot of time talking to the regulars at the Shanty, making fun of GameShow Network shows, and listening to how local business fared in October (most good, some shops are closing, though). I then came home and drank too much wine.

Saturday - Recovered from wine. Beat Borderlands playthrough 1. (The Destructor can go fuck itself). Used Foursquare to track down folks who were in town drinking. Drank a little. Went to a birthday party.

Fell 15 feet off a deck.

I'm okay except for some bruises and scrapes, but it could have been a lot worse. Luckily I bounced off a metal carport on my way down and did not land on any rusted nails or shattered guardrails from the part of the deck that broke.

Sunday - Started Dragon Age. Decided it was too nice to play videogames all day, so walked to Marblehead for nachos. Came home.

The headline from today's Metro:

Commies not over the Berlin Wall's fall

...along with a overly-biased editorial that implies that the violence at Fort Hood was a terrorist attack had me thinking that I'd write about labels and dehumanization as tools of social control, but I really don't have it in me today. Besides, there's altogether too much shouting as it is.

I will say this: "Commie" is SOOO 19551985.

I never thought I'd say this, but that was a great episode of Supernatural.

So I went to the orthodontist last Thursday and he did a few tweaks and said "almost! come back next thursday" so I did. Today, he said "almost! come back next thursday" so I will. I'm very close to done, though. I know this because the back lower 2-3 teeth on either side of my mouth have been cut out of the process. The brackets are still on, but there are no wires or ties connecting them. The front six, however, are being massively redesigned (well, compared to what's happened in the past 8 months, I guess it's not too massive--it feels it, though). They're still connected by a wire, attached to the brackets by steel ties instead of the normal elastic ones. The top teeth are all still connected together.

Finally, in what will most likely be my last week with braces, I'm experiencing the joy of "tough elastics." You know what I'm talking about--the rubber bands that connect your top teeth to your bottom and prevent you from talking like a normal person. I can barely open my mouth! I can't lick my lips! I'm allowed to take them off for eating and brushing only, so let me just say that drinking is a whole new experience. I had trouble breathing while running tonight because I couldn't open my mouth to gulp in the air like I normally do. I'm quite pleased that this is merely a week-long situation.

Thusfar this process has been painful, slightly embarrassing, annoying, fascinating, exhilarating, worrisome, and pleasing. Ultimately, I hope for it to be satisfying, and I will know for sure in a week.

Painful is first in that list because that is the overriding feeling I've had throughout this process. My current doctor has done in eight months what the doctor from my pre-teenage years couldn't do in three years. My mouth has been what I can only term as "exploded," blowing out the lower teeth for the sole purpose of making room for the teeth crowded back, but the process made my front teeth dangerously loose and pretty unusable for the majority of the summer. Each adjustment was followed by a four day period of chewing food with my tongue because my teeth were too sore. I can't imagine asking a child to go through this. Routinely, the technician would do something at my visit that would cause my teeth to visibly change position--that takes a lot of force, and I may have gasped a time or two.

The change, though, is worth it. Even if this is the best that it gets, it's so much better than I could ever imagine. My teeth are finally straight. I'm boggled. Science is amazing.

I'll be posting the official before and after pictures once the after pictures are taken, so look forward to it in the next couple weeks!

http://www.ci.cambridge.ma.us/CPL/announce.htm

It looks beautiful! I can't wait to see it.

Man. The one Mexican food place in Salem has closed, due to lack of business that can pretty much be blamed on the gigantic Tavern on the Square that moved in just down the block from it. It was tasty Mexican food, if a bit too overpriced, and it was a small local business. I hate to get all Davis Square-y "fresh local foods!" but damn, it saddens me to see a unique local business go under. That Mexican place was where we got lunch the day we closed on our house (is that right? maybe it was the day we looked at the house... it was something to do with buying the house), but we never went back, despite thinking "oh we should go back there sometime." It's not like Tavern on the Square is Bennigan's or anything, but Tavern is not part of the small & local vibe that really attracted us to Salem in the first place. And I'm worried, because reading comments in the Salem News (and I know, comments on newspaper articles on the internet are pretty much a wasteland), people are predicting that a couple other local bar/restaurants are close to going under, because of the new Tavern.

Oh my god, I totally feel like a taxpayer. I've never actually loved the city I've lived in before, but I feel such warm fuzzies for Salem, and I really want it to keep the attractions that made us move there. We definitely haven't been going out nearly as much as we used to these days, so I suppose we need to start spending our dinner & drinks money more wisely and spread it around to the places I want to see staying open (I will absolutely die if Gulu-Gulu closes). I also really need to make an effort to buy at the local bookstore, but I'll admit I'm extremely guilty of wanting what I want when I want it, and if it's not stocked at the Cornerstone, I go to Borders. And the Kindle is making even my Borders spending dwindle to peanuts.

God, I am hyped up on coffee and chatty today.

Poll #1481174 More fun than...
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 19

The following *may* be more fun than getting a flu shot...

If you chose other, please specify:

anyone see V last night? I thought it was ok, but without spoiling anything for those who havent watched it and are planning to, my only complaint is i would of liked to have seem more of the story of the day they actually arrived....they might do flashbacks of course if its anything like Lost, but i just thought they jumped ahead too far and could of shown more of the day they actually arrived...it just seemed to go by rather quickly...

Maine, you were so close, but you decided to fuck the human race and just assure me that Yes, we are back to the days before Civil Rights passed in the 60s.
Good job everyone, good job!!!

atleast i dont have to see those racist & homophobic commercials anymore.
and im sure the GOP will figure someway to blame Obama for 'NO on 1' losing.
Heck, they have already blamed Obama for all of 8 Years of GBush. Gotta love seeing those GOP getting interviewed calling it Obama's economy, when it actually was GBush's economy who fucked everything up before 2008 election.

Good job Everyone Good job!!!

John Scalzi talking about geek defensiveness and inter-genre snobbery.

Yesterday, ms_ntropy and I were chatting about the reclamation of the term "geek." My position was that -- while I'm aware it was considered mostly pejorative not too long ago -- geekiness has become a pretty neutral attribute in both my personal use and mainstream pop-culture. Such that, when I encounter someone who still sees it as an insult, I'm a little surprised.

When I call myself a geek, I'm not trying to fight the stigma or prove how much I don't care. The stigma's already pretty much done for. It's like saying I'm left-handed or have brown eyes. I'm a geek. So what?

(The area where I am defensive is romance and soap opera, which almost everyone scorns, because genre fans are like Puritans: sure, they're no strangers to persecution themselves, but BY GOD, that's not going to stop them from being intolerant to anyone else. *eyeroll*)

Finally, speaking of geeky things, several pages of the Avatar: The Last Airbender show Bible have been released, which is just... neat.

Brutal Legend - Thumbs down. So much promise in its setup: Roadie travels to badass land based on heavy metal album covers and kicks ass with magical axes (both choppy and guitary. The writing is fine, the voice acting is great, and the animation is good. It's just the gameplay that I don't like. The demo made it feel like you'd be playing a brawler, kicking ass and taking names, when actually you were playing some sort of hybrid RTS. I like RTSes, I just don't like them getting in the way of me blasting things with my guitar.

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 - Thumbs down. All the promise of the first UA was tossed out the window. The animation is a bit better, but the gameplay has been dumbed down. Gone is the depth of story and look into the history of the Marvel setting (seriously, you go to Murderworld, a place no Marvel character has visited since the early 90s) and instead you are left with a storyline based on the Civil War event that is now dated and does not make sense. By the time UA2 came out, most of the Big Changes of Civil War were undone. Comic heroes should never fight comic heroes out of some ideology, they should only fight when there is a 1) brief misunderstanding 2) an impostor or 3) mind control involved.

Borderlands - Two blistered thumbs up. This game only existed on my radar as a sort of, "Hey, that kinda looks like Fallout 3" game. And then I started reading the reviews, which were all pretty positive. Borderlands is a sort of Western In Space set on a frontier prospecting planet that's a mix between Mad Max and Firefly. And there are guns. Thousands and thousands of guns, each with different characteristics for you to collect and compare. Some guns shoot bullets made of electricity. Some shotguns shoot rockets. Some rockets are made of acid. Add in witty writing and enough quests to satisfy a Gotta Catch'em All completest and you have the sleeper hit of the fall.

Dragon Age: Origins - This is the game that Brutal Legends was supposed to tide me over for. It'll be arriving at home today, but I'm unsure if I want to crack it until I get at least one Borderlands playthrough set. Dragon Age is by the people who brought us Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect, and those Jedi games. It looks crazy fantasy geeky.

All that said, I heartily recommend Amazon.com for game purchases. They have a 'get it on release day' feature for most games that will get you your game delivered on day of release for less than it would cost at Gamestop. Also, preordering will usually get you goodies. I got a 10$ coupon for another game from ordering Dragon Age, which I promptly put towards Lego Rock Band, bringing its cost down into the low thirties.

Lego Rock Band's main draw is not the game, but the ability to bring over all its tracks to Rock Band 2, ala Rock Band 1 -> 2, and dammit, if you don't think I would leap at the chance to play The Final Countdown or the Ghostbusters theme in Rock band, you can just go get out right now.

The first questions concerning the theme for Nov. 15 have arrived and have been run by the head table. As was said in that discussion:

"I think your initial announcement implied things that are green, growing now, and possess edible leaves as the only qualification -- that does open up broccoli raab, late lettuces, herbs, brussels sprouts, all cabbages, cress, endive, radicchio, escarole, chicory, dandelion, arugula, chard, kale, spinach, beet greens, etc."

I'm happy to run with this unless there is a popular cry against it.

Woe. I can't believe we didn't take any pictures of our Halloween party. If anyone else took some pics, I'd love to see them (and possibly post them on facebook). thiswakingdream, I know you took some, but I don't know if they were digital.

Also, the Governor is talking about closing down the State House Library. This is seriously a really bad idea. How are people going to access legislative materials (historical and current)? Massachusetts is already beyond screwed up with its lack of transparency and acts that never get codified but are still good law, not having access to an organized depository of this information would make legal research in Mass. even more of a nightmare.

Edited to add: So the State Library website is kind of lame, but I want to point out how amazingly awesome the Mass. Trial Court Law Libraries' website is. Free document delivery?! I've already been using the hell out of their free HeinOnline, and that is icing on the cake. They also have free Lexis/Westlaw, but only in the libraries. Still, there are some amazing library resources available, and it makes me sad that so many people don't know about them. You can also get access to the Boston Public Library's databases online by doing a 2 second online registration.

It was a rough local growing season this year, and rumors are there were only a handful of crops that did reliably well. This event's theme is a common staple in CSA shares and presents a suitable challenge for our competitors. Two weeks hence, your dishes will focus on... ( clicky )

Can I just say how awesome it is to roll over after a good night of sleep, read the numbers on the clock, and then realize that it's a WHOLE HOUR EARLIER than the clock says it is?
That...that's just magic right there. Oh sure, it'll be a pain to have to chance the three clocks I have on my bedside table, but so worth it for that 15 seconds of joy. Bliss.

Yesterday I spent Halloween in Salem at the loverly abode of c_m_i and wildflowersoul. The weather was fabulous. The company was awesome. The food was amazing. And as icing on this amazing cake of goodness, sir_gareth and his Bride joined us as well. Seriously, such an awsome time.

The only not awesome thing about the day was trying to get to Salem. We were 4 minutes late for the 3 o'clock train, which sucked because the next one wasn't for another hour and a half. We made due with killing time at a Boston Beer Works.

The way back? Well..it wasn't the best of all possibly commutes, but I was so damn entertained by everyone around me that it wasn't nearly as bad as it could have been. Just...so many people trying to get on the last Boston-bound commuter train as it was raining. Bedlam. tenillypo and I got separated from the rest of our group and found ourselves standing amidst a group of young'uns. Still though, it's not every day I get to yell the stop names at the top of my lungs, or have conversations like this:

Young'un: I hope we’re not being too annoying.
Me: Nah, it’s cool. And besides the eye candy more than makes up for it.
Friend of Young’un: What does she mean by that? Eye-candy?
Young’uns: She means that we look hot.
Friend of Young’uns: What is she a lesbian or something?
Young’un: Are you a lesbian?
Me: No. I’m not a lesbian.
Young’un: That’s cool. I’m Bi.
Me: You’re in good company then. Or at very least you’re in my company.

Then I got a high five.
They were really cute. Seventeen, but really cute. It’s a good thing I was pretty well plastered at the time, else I would have felt dirty.

We managed to easily catch a Green Line train where really cute girls in animal-costumes-of-questionable-virtue proceeded to a) correctly guess jawalter’s costume, and b) ask me if my Zatanna garb was really a “Slutty Abraham Lincoln.” Good times.

There was a 57 nearly waiting for us when we got to Kenmore, and then in the back of the bus we met a guy in the John McClane costume we were talking about earlier in the day. He had on a pair of those toe-divided running shoes and a 2-d cardboard machine gun.