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Thursday, October 15th, 2009
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Whew. So! I'm not dead. I regret that most of my LJ posts a) require stating that, b) are probably somewhat surprising when I do make that statement.
Things that have been going on:
1) I am posting this from my new laptop. A Lenovo ideapad. Not meant to be amazing - not gaming on it or anything, but I wanted a laptop I could screw around with, and given that this was on a fairly deep discount, I won't feel any compunctions about not attempting things with it. My plan is to partition my harddrive fairly evenly and then finally take a second look at Linux, given the last time I looked at it was uh. 2003? There have um. Been some advances since then, one hears. :P
2) Life is still going well. I'm spending not enough time being social and too much time at work, but I largely enjoy work, and home is good, so y'know. It works.
3) This past weekend was my birthday, and it was the sort of birthday I'd wanted to have for about the past five years. Seriously good times - on the evening before I went to a club for goth night with a few folks and we danced until something like 1:30. Went home, slept about 6 hours, then went back out with a bunch of friends to King Richard's Faire, and after many hours of that, the rest of the evening was spent generally hanging out and playing board games. It was pretty much solid packed funtimes. And then on Sunday I completely crashed and did nothing of any worth, which was a good thing.
4) I saw a great concert last night - Carbon Leaf plus Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers. Both groups were enjoyable, and good performers. I liked Carbon Leaf better, but then I also actually knew them before the concert. Earlier in the month I went to the ballet with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) genarti and we saw Giselle. There was also a Vienna Teng concert a while back... it's been a pretty good time for entertainment.
5) Today we had our IT team build at my workplace. We went en masse to this corn maze at Connors Farm, then got on a brief hayride tour of the farm before heading over to Alfalfa Farms winery for a brief tour, some wine tasting, lunch, and subsequent wine purchasing. Yes, shockingly, I actually bought wine. I don't generally like wine at all, but they had a blueberry and a cranberry wine that were excellent. I am highly enthused about this.
6) Oh right. And there was Dragon*Con. I dressed up as Edel, a doll character from the awesome anime Princess Tutu, and we had a group, including the eponymous Princess Tutu in the form of a bookelfe, her nemesis but actually totally her friend, genarti, their perplexing feline teacher, jothra, and the eternally terrifying Drosselmeyer, rushin_doll. I really enjoyed doing the group thing, as well as other bits of the con (and of just the people attending the con), but I do think next year I am taking more damned time off beforehand. I was way too tired on getting there, and hadn't had time to finish all of the costume beforehand. August? Was crazy.
Going up to Maine shortly, supposed to be working on decorating Halloween-wise for work, should be getting together my hopefully not too time-intensive Halloween costume, will be heading to NY the weekend after this one... it's going to be a bit busy. On the whole, though, life is good.
Also? I may be slow to learn here, but I kind of love Pandora now. It introduced me to Echo Slightly, whom I am enjoying the hell out of. I feel like Not To Have To Lie is roughly the best thing in the existence of ever, but I sort of want to get other people to listen to it and tell me if I'm crazy for thinking that.
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| Time: | 2:22 pm. |
| Music: | Coheed and Cambria - Welcome Home. |
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I have arrived in DC. Well, College Park, Maryland to be exact. I got weirdly misty-eyed when I passed through Rosslyn, and actually it doesn't look to have changed too much, from the half dozen streets I caught.
I really want to wander around through my old haunts in Arlington, but I'm also fairly sure I'm just not going to have any time. /: Also, I am currently exhausted from having left at 5:15 AM in order to get to the airport on time.
Oh, I should perhaps mention - I doubt I will have time because I am down here for my second ever business trip. It's almost like I have a real job or something. <_<
I'm mostly looking forward to this week, but I do expect to come out of it looking like I've been beaten about the head repeatedly with an aardvark.
Ah well, at least it's pretty down here.
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Saturday, March 14th, 2009
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...I had a dream last night, which I have only just now remembered part of. Don't know what the bulk of it was, but there was this detail wherein I was talking with my old housemate, Saurabh, and he was living with someone I don't think I knew, and owned a Wii, and made some offhanded comment about how they had stopped playing because it was such a timesink (I have had this conversation about gaming systems in geenral about ten times in the past two months). I offered to buy it from him, and he declined, and I was sort of sad.
How random is that?
So my life has been crazy stupid crazy busy lately, and training the new person to take over my job has been making for long hours at work, 'cause I'm supposed to be learning my new position and doing some, but nowhere near all the responsibilities for that job, as well, plus I'm sometimes doing a little extra work for my old job so we don't fall behind. Aie.
Meanwhile, I got summoned to jury duty, got a postponement, didn't get a confirmation that it *was* postponed, so ended up going anyhow (bless Beth for taking me at arse o' clock Wednesday morning), only to get in line and have them look at me funny since my name wasn't on the list, and tell me to come back in May. Yay. /: Also, we've had a few small chorus concerts, one in this rose garden-focused art gallery showing, and another in a presentation hall in a library. We're doing another short thing at that library this coming Tuesday.
I'm at my mom's house, and listening to her on the treadmill while waiting for my dinner to cool a bit. But it's definitely about time for dinner.
I'm so, so pleased that the sun is still up at seven PM these days. Can't wait for spring.
Hope you're all having good weekends. :)
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Friday, February 6th, 2009
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I interviewed for and got a new job today (at the same company). Promotion of happiness and professionalness+6! It is the most exciting thing ever.
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Wednesday, December 17th, 2008
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| Time: | 8:37 am. |
| Music: | Coheed and Cambria - Ten Speed (Of God's Blood and Burial). |
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This month=brainsplat.
I dropped a commitment and am *still* simultaneously behind on everything at work and in my personal life and not getting enough sleep. Why is the holiday season so damned stressful? /:
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Wednesday, November 5th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:11 am. |
| Music: | Obama's acceptance speech. |
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Thank heavens. Also, FUCK YEAH.
And now to becalm myself enough to sleep.
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Thursday, October 16th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:49 am. |
| Music: | Azam Ali - The Cold Black Key. |
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This is wholly stupid, I admit.
I'm going down to NY tomorrow. I cannot decide whether or not to take my laptop with me. This is so comparatively trivial a question.
Pros:
Bus trip goes really quickly when you can watch anime the whole way
I know I'll have all the music I want to listen to
I might be able to get internet on the bus on the way down - yay internet
Cons:
Laptop in its case is heavy and awkward
Net connection at home is complicated and it's easier to just not deal with it, so no internet at home on it anyhow
Possible to get hijacked by work if I have it.
I have an iPod, but it hasn't been synched up to anything lately because what I'd want to synch it to is currently on three separate hard drives. Man, do I have to do something about that. Also, iPod is being quirky lately, and doesn't want to play in stereo out the headphones unless the jack is being held at a weird angle.
So, laptop. Should it stay or should it go?
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Monday, October 13th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:29 pm. |
| Music: | Bjork - Army of Me. |
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Weekdays are so much less interesting than weekends. It's only been a few hours, realistically, and yet I can already very certainly conclude this. I had fun every evening this weekend, though I didn't get enough done the entire time. All I've done besides hang out with people is read books and catch up on internet stuff. I need to get my Halloween plans going very soon.
Also, I am very, very glad I decided to take off both Thursday and Friday to go down to NY, as I forgot we're having this big to do related to work on Wednesday night, and now it means I can go to that and not panic about not having packed by Wednesday night. :P
I had a really great birthday, for I think the first time in several years. If I recall correctly, last birthday I was so tired I fell face down onto my bed and was dead asleep at 7 PM. The birthday before that I spent with my mum - 'nough said. The ones before that I don't quite remember.
That said... damnit, I want to still be 27. 28 is a totally uninteresting age to be.
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Saturday, September 6th, 2008
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| Time: | 2:54 pm. |
| Music: | Garbage - Paranoid. |
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Y'know, it occurs to me... I never actually posted to say that the summit of my life has been reached: I now own Rock Band.
Unsurprisingly, I adore the ever-living fuck out of it. I spend waaaay too much time playing in band mode by myself by singing and playing bass at the same time. (I can even do this on Hard now for songs I actually know the vocals to at all. Trying to do songs I don't know at all, though, is horrifying.) I also habitually dragoon Beth into playing with me. Poor thing. Seriously, though, playing with multiple friends is the most fun ever, and more people should come over so that I can dupe them into playing as well. :)
There was this ongoing saga wherein I tried to open "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria for days and days without actually having worked out how the gaining new songs mechanic worked. Then I finally pulled up the internets and figured out how I was *supposed* to get new songs and did it in short order. Except I had to fumble my way through Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld by myself on both vocals and bass, and it was some sort of travesty. Still worth it, though. :D
Also? Me singing "Wave of Mutilation" in my quasi-operatic voice=funniest goddamned thing ever.
Also, also? I made a whole playlist of a bunch of Rock Band songs on my computer so that I can learn the vocals better. *is not pathetic at all, no really*
So yeah, come over. Friiiieeeends!
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Tuesday, September 2nd, 2008
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Meme from juldea
Classical Music
So here we go. Strike through I couldn't hum it to you or recognize any of it, even if I might recognize the name or the composer. Regular text means I've heard it enough to recognize or even hum it. Italics means I have a copy of it in some form of media. Bold means I've played it in band or on piano or something.
( The List )
Things I have learned from this: a) I own, representationally, more classical than I usually listen to. b) I do not admit to the existence of piano music. c) wow, I really don't listen to enough Tchaikovsky.
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| Time: | 3:01 pm. |
| Music: | Tantric - Breakdown. |
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So I've registered and bought airfare for and gotten vacation days for Dragon*Con. I do not, as yet, have hotel rooming set up. I am not exactly made of planning. /:
Is anyone looking for another person to split rooms with?
There's been talk of a bunch of us all dressing up as the women of Avatar. This would be awesome, though I'm sure we wouldn't be the only ones.
In other news, our cat is both adorable and completely freaking ridiculous.
In other, other news, I am far too much out of the habit of practicing flute. I got home after some brunch and general hanging out yesterday and decided that since no one was around, it'd be a good time to practice. So I pulled out some stuff, old pieces like Faure's Fantasie and Doppler's Fantasie Patorale Hongroise (I swear it was not a fantasy theme) and worked on those until the sixteenth runs and whatnot sounded even vaguely convincing.
Things I have (re)discovered:
- I can apparently pick this back up pretty quickly, despite literally months of not practicing
- My right forearm still doesn't like the amount of tension I have in my hands when I play
- Oh yeah, I always did do things like forget to eat while playing, didn't I?
After looking for an hour or so last night, I have come to the conclusion that finding a community orchestra in this orchestra that actually *wants* a flute player is HARD. *sigh*
Maybe someday I'll be a real girl. :P
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| Time: | 9:43 pm. |
| Music: | Buckethead - Coma (with Azam Ali and Serj Tankian). |
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Y'know, on the whole, my life really rocks. And it's June and it's Friday and other than needing to catch up on sleep, everything in life is great.
And can I just say? I recently got my work laptop replaced. Current laptop? Totally makes me happy. And has most of my music on it, now. Huzzah. (Also a working sound card and DVD player, unlike my last one.) Pretty much best perq ever. And that's specifically beating out the semi-constant offering of free gelato at my office. :D
This post brought to you by my semi-constant feeling of well-being these days, plus a hazy feeling due to lack of sleep.
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| Time: | 11:31 pm. |
| Music: | Vienna Teng - Anna Rose. |
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I burned my lip. From this I have learned that I am a big wimp. Yay for self-knowledge. <_<
I'm also procrastinating. I should be getting ready for my vacation (cruise to Alaska), or at the very least sleeping, so I'll be more likely to do prep work later. Honestly, though, I find most vacations to be stressful, and I'm finding this one to be doubly so before even having left. I think I'll refrain from getting into the why of this.
I think I need another vacation at some point in the near future that involves traveling somewhere I specifically want to go, and with a friend or two, not family. Even after I take a week off for Alaska, I'll still have four weeks of vacation, so this is feasible, really.
Where should I go?
On the mundane and simple side, it'd be nice to see Montreal and Quebec - I went briefly in eighth grade, but didn't see any of Montreal, just bits of Quebec for two days.
I'd also really like to go back to France (yes, yes, I'll stop with the French-speaking countries any time now).
I've also never been to the UK, which is sad.
And I also have this insane desire to go to Morocco (okay, I liked about stopping with the French-speaking countries).
Bets are good that I won't get around to this any time soon, though.
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Saturday, April 26th, 2008
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So ROFLCon has been sort of from the sublime to the ridiculous thus far. I need to get back over there soon and continue to experience the internet in the form of Other peoples' t-shirts.
Yesterday I did two panels and a concert. The first panel was on the history of memes and transmission thereof, and it was freaking AWESOME. There's nothing better than someone passionate about a topic you know very little about, who speaks well about it, and has a sense of humour. I mean, sure, I'd heard of BBSes, but that was about as far back as I'd considered geekiness. This guy was talking about stuff from the nineteenth century in a really engaging way, and making me think, "hey, I bet those telegraph geeks would have been pretty nifty!" I left with this "humanity is awesome!" feeling. (Also, subject is a really catchy and entertaining video, if you've not seen it: http://youtube.com/watch?v=xHw5T4_JmmM&feature=related )
The second panel was largely crap, actually. BUT! I really wanted londo's cell number to mention that I saw MC Frontalot start playing turns in KoL in the middle of it. Amused me, and I just thought he'd appreciate that somehow. The panel itself was blah, and later got pretty effectively highjacked by someone really intent on discussing Net Netrality. I mean, a) not the topic of the panel, b) preaching to the choir.
Concert was largely enjoyable. In case you didn't know this, Lemon Demon is surprisingly awesome. (They're the ones known for "Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny," but I really, really enjoyed the rest of their live set, and they do tons of mixed meter stuff, which is always fun.) We only caught three acts before leaving for a movie, but I'm pretty sure nothing would have topped Lemon Demon for me, anyhow.
Also, MC Frontalot is still fabulous, and I totally enjoyed Nerdcore Rising (documentary very largely focused on Frontalot, though theoretically pertaining to nerdcore in general, as well).
I should get going. Except I don't have any socks. *sigh*
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You know those semi-ubiquitous signs that say "WE BUY HOUSES!" that people continually hang on telephone poles and pretty much anything that isn't moving? Somehow already knowing what they say didn't prevent me from double-taking on reading one as "WE BUY HORSES!" today.
Damn. I had so been hoping to unload the massive string of horseflesh camping out in our backyard. :P
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Wednesday, April 9th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:08 pm. |
| Music: | Thea Gilmore - Lidocaine Baby (in my head...forever). |
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I know I post proportionally too much about work and not enough about Other Stuff. I swear this is not an accurate representation of my life.
So, to attempt to balance, while I am feeling compelled to ask for good mojo on my yearly review (doing that in about an hour with my boss), I will also post my egg curry recipe here, which I now owe two people, anyhow, and which I will presumably follow tonight.
Egg Curry (Unless you want to feel cool and cultured and call it "Anda Masala")
Ingredients:
eggs - hard boiled, then halved (between 9 and 12 is my usual batch)
tomatoes - chopped (I usually use either four or five plum (roma) tomatoes, or two to three if they're larger)
onion - chopped (half a decent sized one)
ginger - grated (a thumb's worth)
garlic - finely chopped (I'm a four or five clove kind of girl)
cilantro - coarsely chopped (to taste - if you don't like it, leave it)
whole spices - I use cumin, cardamom (seeds, not pods, but as you like), cloves, mustard seeds (a lot!), a cinnamon stick (sometimes), and occasionally toss something else in, but these are my standards.
asafoetida
salt (to taste)
coconut oil
Okay, so I recommend chopping up as much as you can beforehand so that it doesn't mess up timing, but I don't actually follow my recommendation. :P
Grab a frying pan, put enough coconut oil in it to just grace the bottom with a layer and put the stove on medium high heat. Once your pan is warmed up, toss in all of your whole spices and wait until they've started popping a bit. Once those are good, toss in your chopped onion, and get that cooked down enough to be somewhat translucent. You want to be stirring pretty frequently. You can toss the ginger and garlic in when the onion is off to a good start.
Once your spices have seasoned the pan, place your halved eggs in (I usually start with them flat side down, then try to rotate them once they've cooked somewhat) and turn down the flame just a bit (to medium). You'll probably end up having bits of yolk fall out as you're cooking the eggs - I am wholeheartedly in favour of this. I think it makes the sauce better. I usually over-encourage at least one egg to lose its yolk entirely.
Once your eggs have gotten a little browned and gotten seasoned a bit, toss in your diced tomatoes and put the flame back up (medium high or high). At this point, toss in your salt and asafoetida and just keep the thing going until the tomatoes cook down into your sauce. Season with cilantro (if you like), and serve.
ETA: I forgot serrano chiles (diced, if you like spice, which I do, though I usually seed them as a concession to a) my teeth, and b) genarti who isn't quite as much of a spice nut as I am).
Also, I got a ten percent raise and glowing review. Yay. :D
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Saturday, March 1st, 2008
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I sorted my music by genre and looked through what I had that was labeled "Classical." After listening to all my Josquin (not much), I scrolled to the end of the section, where I have the Dies Irae from Mozart's Requiem immediately followed by Gunther and the Sunshine Girls Ding Dong Song starting a new genre: "Club."
I'm pretty sure this is some sort of sin.
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Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
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| Time: | 12:25 pm. |
| Music: | Sonata Arctica - Don't Say a Word. |
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I have invented a new word, and wish to spread it as much as possible. I do, however, recognise, not all of you will have the use for it that I do. "Craberdashery" is my new word, prompted by too much caffeine and sugar, too little sleep, some silly friends, and, of course, my beloved crab hat. Clearly in order to help me in my cause you all should go out and purchase crab hats as well. :P Actually, I should go into the crab-hat-making business so as to be able to order business cards for myself where I get to title myself a "craberdasher" and sell you all your crab hats. Obviously.
On a completely unrelated topic, I'm wondering if there's any way for searching for music not by artist or style, but characteristics. I can almost guarantee anything with a decent amount of syncopation in a minor key will at least entertain me. Odd meter? Ditto. Ideally, I'd love to find a random stash of minor, melodic music with syncopated bits and mixed meter. I know this will never, ever happen, but still.
It just seems there are a bunch of one off songs that I really enjoy while not particularly caring about the rest of the bands' works. This is not ideal, clearly.
Anyhow, happy Tuesday. And back to the grindstone. /:
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