Balinares
May. 19th, 2008
01:08 am - The Salmon of Doubt.
My microwave oven is clean. Sparkly clean.
It's not its natural state, mind you. In a microwave, in mine at least, you always seem to find small bits of bread crumbs at the bottom, perhaps the odd tiny squirt of overheated sauce somewhere in the inside, regardless of how careful I am.
That was before the salmon.
My girl was not home, and as usual in such cases, in lieu of dinner, I fell back on one of those horribly convenient microwave dishes: just pierce the container's lid with a fork, and pop it into the microwave for a couple minutes. Done.[*]
This time, I chose the salmon and rice dish. I love salmon, and it is my guilty, secret delight that due to the ever rising price of other kinds of fish salmon is popping up all over the microwave dish market as cheap nourishment for the masses.
With the ritual of lid-piercing seen to with the required amount of decorum and an otherwise unremarkable fork, I wandered around on dinner preparation related business while the microwave buzzed away happily.
About thirty seconds from the end, there was that noise, wet and hollow: poff.
My eyebrows knotted. I stopped the microwave and opened the door.
The salmon was not in the container.
The container was, however, about the only place in the microwave where the salmon wasn't.
There was this big rip in the container's lid. My salmon had made a break for it. In all directions at once.
Me? Not cheerful.
The next few minutes saw me at the kitchen table, contemplating my next course of action while dolefully shovelling into my mouth the (much tamer, thank you) rice and what salmon had been successfully scrapped off the microwave's sides in sufficiently consistent chunks.
All the while, from the microwave was coming a strong smell of salmon and, err, of tiny squirts of overheated sauce.
... Only a considerable time later did I lean back from the microwave, wipe my forehead, and lob the sponge back into the sink. Salmon purée sticks.
But at least, now my microwave is clean.
Sparkly clean.
[*] Not that I can't cook, mind you, when I can be bothered to. For that matter, even with ready-made microwave dishes, and regardless of their usually fairly decent quality, I'll commonly give in to creative impulses and reach for the large box of assorted spices and condiments that is one of the first things we unpacked after moving, go figure.
Apr. 18th, 2008
12:45 am - Hitchhikers.
There's been Mrs. Chattychatchat, who'd fit an entire evening worth of talking in a five minute ride -- and repeated the feat on a separate occasion where I picked her up again, not having recognized her... until she started talking.
There's been Dark Clothed Youngster, picked up after sundown, who seemed very intent on informing me that, "You know, you shouldn't be picking up people like me at night," and after a brief, loaded silence, "...Know what I mean?" (Somehow I came out of the encounter alive.)
And I now present you, ladies and gentlemen, my esteemed readership, Mr. Vacant Flat Upstairs.
Mr. Vacant Flat Upstairs is waiting by the side of the road, thumb half-assedly up; and since the sun has this time not yet set on the Land of Non-Standard Hitchhikers, I pull up.
In an instant, his expression goes from 'nothing' to 'eyebrows arched all the way up, mouth rounding in absolute delight.' Best. Moment. In. His. Life.
He gets into my car and begins to shake my hand. And then keeps shaking my hand. ... After about ten seconds, I gently pull it back, on account that I kind of need it to shift gears. And he begins to talk.
Well. Talk.
The words come out jumbled through the huge toothy grin. Wudda melm dah letta uh meffeh woman. Well. Err. Oh, I see, good sir, at first you took me for a woman due to my long hair. Ah ah ah. Makes sense. Long hair. Woman. Ah.
The grin broadens even more, and at this point I shamefully admit I'm growing more than a little nervous. He launches into a merry, disjointed discourse that ends with the word 'grey' and his running a finger through the dust on my dashboard.
"Oh, grey?" I repeat, faking interest while mentally calculating my chances of survival should I have to jump out the window unprepared.
He patiently provides further explanation.
Oh, err, why, yes, I say. Absolutely, good sir. I should have chosen a grey dashboard rather than a black one, so the dust wouldn't show. Ah ah. A grey dashboard. He wags a finger at me. How didn't I think of it, silly me? Apparently brown and white would have worked as well: just not black. But there you have it: my dashboard is black and so the dust shows.
But no matter. I am kindly informed that I'll have time to clean it tomorrow: he doesn't work tomorrow because it's Sunday, and so I'll have time to clean it. Because he doesn't work. Tomorrow.
And then he points at the clock on the dashboard and goes, wahl fesbel wemma nah two years? And the scary thing is, somehow, by then, I'm starting to make sense of it. Err, no, good sir, the car's way more than two years old (and what my dashboard clock has to do with it will remain obscure to the end of my life). Oh, yes, so it's an old car, but it works fine so I'm not complaining. It's a second hand car. So I unfortunately had no say 'bout that dashboard. Which is not grey. Y'know what I mean.
And then I drop him near his intended destination, and he spends another ten seconds shaking my hand with a flow of nearly-words of thanks and pure delight.
In retrospect, it was like that feeling you get when a dementedly cheerful puppy from one of those giant breeds comes lumbering at you and the owner says, "Don't worry, he only wants to play!"
You know.
Balancing between charmed and mildly terrified.
... I like puppies.
Apr. 1st, 2008
11:40 pm - Non Sequitur
Unrelated to anything in particular:
Today, I saw fish in an aquarium.
One of the fish, small and orange, was lying on its side at the bottom of the aquarium, in a corner, twitching weakly, its mouth opening and closing.
The other fish were ignoring it: they were busily gathered at the other end of the aquarium, where the owner was pouring food, small brown pellets which they fought over in a flurry of bright colors.
Only one slow, quiet grey fish eventually edged away from the mass, toward the small orange fish that was lying in the corner. There, it opened its mouth, and fanned its gills, and a rain of small brown pellets fell near the small fish's mouth; its fins twitched faster.
Before the fish that was lying at the bottom of the aquarium could capture any, the mass of all the other fish was on him, fighting over the pellets with renewed frenzy, while the small orange fish twitched helplessly.
And when all the small brown pellets where gone, the mass of fish then turned on it, nipping at its fins then at its flesh. With a sudden surge of energy, it rose and propelled itself halfway across the aquarium, attempting to hide under the dark broken rocks there.
Then the other fish closed on it and hid it from view.
Such is what I saw today.
Feb. 20th, 2008
11:34 pm
And we're back online!
As I more or less expected, being clairvoyant (and by 'clairvoyant' I mean 'pessimistic old ass'), the national telco adamantly refused to renew the particular kind of DSL setup we used to have from years back, what with it being so horribly inconvenient to them[1].
And since there's no TV yet at the new house, we thought we'd take the opportunity to switch ISPs as well and check out one of those fancy new fellows that will deliver fast DSL, dirt cheap phone calls and more TV channels than we could shake a cartload of sticks at, should we care enough to try, for a couple nut shells a month.
Now, switching ISPs is not unlike setting sail for the high seas, in the sense that, rum abuse notwithstanding, while you generally know just about when you depart, heavens bless you, there's no telling when you'll get there, if ever at all. (Ask that Ulysses guy 'bout it.)
This is why I first counted myself pretty darn lucky when I received this afternoon, barely a week into the proceedings, a notification that our DSL line had been built -- then it dawned on me that the brave gentlemen were still WAY behind in packaging and shipping the modem-router-wifi-TV decoder-DVR magic box we're going to require in order to enjoy the service.
So I, uh, reprogrammed our old and now obsolete router's configuration to trick it into believing itself one of the new ISP's magic boxes. Surprisingly, I got it to work. :)
And here we are.
But you bastards[2] sure posted lots since. c_c
[1] Mind you, it dates back from the days of yore when it was their responsibility to fix the phone line in the event the DSL side of it broke. Thankfully those days are long past: in this glorious modern day, they can leave you stranded without remorse or legal obligation, although I'm not entirely sure they care much at all about the remorse part.
[2] And by 'bastards' I mean 'bastards ♥'.
Feb. 7th, 2008
08:55 pm - Okay, that's it.
Alright. After posting this, I'll shut the computer down and pack it with the rest of our stuff. No idea when I'm back online -- it'll depend on how speedy the phone company dudes are at turning on the ADSL on our new phone line. I should still be able to connect from work and stay in touch until then.
This feels odd. >O.o<
Tomorrow, we finish packing, we go fetch the rental truck, we welcome C.'s parents and ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
kefen, who are kindly coming to help us, all while managing to be at the new house in time to have the fridge and cooker delivered.
Saturday, we move, with the help of a few more friends.
There's still one billion things to do until then but all I can do is sit wide-eyed, studiously refraining the urge to flail and panic.
It'll all be okay. I hope.
Well, bye for now, anyway.
Feb. 1st, 2008
11:25 pm
WE HAVE KEYS. (And house. And still mortgage.)
We're still going to have the locks changed, because having your house keys end up 'somewhere out there' for any non trivial length of time is Bad Mojo, as our ever vigilant lady notary called us to point out.
So after work, we got into the car, along with some token amount of already packed stuff, and drove off to OUR house. (We're still kinda giddy about the 'our' part. It feels alien, and a bit scary.)
Despite the cold and unrelenting rain, the feeling that struck me from our very first visit, one of comfort and homeyness, returned at once. This is the sort of house that is wonderful to be inside when it's cold and wet out.
And you bet we're gonna cozy up the hell right out of it, nesting creatures that we both are.
On the other hand, I am daunted by the amount of wallpaper replacing, paint refreshing, parquet flooring, vegetation cropping, plumbing deriving and electric rewiring that's ahead of us.
It's gonna be one interesting year for sure.
Jan. 31st, 2008
06:32 pm
WE HAVE HOUSE. (And mortgage.)
The notary stuff wasn't as bad as I expected. I usually dread notaries, because experience taught me to mistrust important looking people with a tie, but this went well, in part because the notary we blindly selected to Represent Our Interests[*] in this deal turned out to be a little middle aged lady with a pleasantly intelligent face and a way to listen that made me take an immediate liking to her; and she did a real nice job seeing us through the whole notarial business reasonably unbaffled.
I can't say I was very impressed by the guy from the investment company from whom we're buying the house, though. You know the style. Buy estate, divide estate, sell parts, profit. (Sadly *cough* in this case they can't seem to find someone to buy the small, misshapen plot they've sheared off what would otherwise have been our property. Not that I'm complaining -- that excision of part of the estate is why we got the house for a relatively good price.)
Things were wrapped up in under an hour, which WAS a pleasant surprise. Then, keys in hand -- OUR keys! -- we drove through the rising winter storm to go open OUR house and presumably fool around inside, seeing as it's OURS and if we want, we can, goddammit.
Under icy sleet and whipping storm winds, keys were tried in various order on various doors.
To no avail.
The estate agent gave us the wrong keys. Doesn't know where the correct set is.
We are NOT PLEASED.
We'll have them by the weekend, or I'll have that guy's balls instead, I swear. *grump*
In the meanwhile, unhappy. The week's been long and stressful, and in no small part spent kicking bank employees in the pants so the last bits of financial arrangements would be ready in time, and I was eagerly looking forward to it all being over, so I could sit in a chair and lean back and let out a long, long sigh.
Well, no go.
This feeling that no damn thing can ever go right might be entirely subjective, but it's becoming tiresome. Grahr.
[*] Such adult stuff. We have our own notary. For real. I have exactly no idea what to make of that.
Jan. 14th, 2008
08:36 pm
Being sick sucks wet farts out of dead pigeons.
Last week started under bleak auspices, and then took a dive when I came down sick with some kind of flu.
My initial sentiment of "Yay I get to call in sick!" lasted a coupla hours -- then the fever shakes began.
I don't get sick often at all. I'm not used to fever shakes. I had no idea one could be so miserable, turning over in bed all night, sweating and shivering way too much to fall asleep despite utter exhaustion.
Thankfully I got better yesterday, about just in time to return to work.
But now I've got a persistent, unpleasant chemical-ish smell stuck in my sinuses and it's driving me nuts. What the hell, body?
Dec. 21st, 2007
10:10 am
Okay, jallora and I are off down south to see... you know, relatives'n stuff.
Will be back in a week or so. You guys take care. <3
Dec. 18th, 2007
12:41 am
Okay, so today, I managed to get myself to pull out my equipment, sit down, and paint.
This is a first.
This is actually a big deal for me. Usually, a combination of inertia, procrastination, and a deep-rooted feeling of not able to make it work, utterly keeps me from actually sitting and making things.
And, holy poodle on a tricycle, that project is watercolors. Watercolors are my archnemesis. (It's a long story, one that involves a lot of blotches, stains, frustration and disgust.) Well, while I can't claim to have beaten them into submission just yet, today at least, I managed to fiddle-niggle them into, shall I say, a moderate level of grudging cooperation, which fills me with more glee than I can coherently express. Take that, watercolors.
Not sure how that came to be. Probably some combination of taking a day off with the explicit purpose of attempting to paint, and working myself up to it all weekend. That, and my teacher is real good, yeah.
This evening I also had a martial arts exam, which I went into somewhat glumly on account of really not having the energy for that kind of thing lately. (I get wheezy within two minutes of having started, and within five minutes, my limbs are shaking. Damn you, limbs.)
But hey, today I've tackled water-based painting, so what are a kata and a few complicatedly-named moves? Somehow, I passed not one grade, but two. (Lots of wheezing and limbs shaking ensued.) From within their box, the watercolors are staring in silent shock. Glee!
That has to be the most productive day off I've taken since my first blotch.
(Yes, complicatedly is a word, I checked.)
Dec. 5th, 2007
07:41 pm - Bitterest technology
Today's XKCD might have been written for me.
But lo, how conveniently it omits to mention that 1) flying around is not that exhilarating if the whole landscape underneath is made of rot, and 2) you are only free to fly around up until the point you have to land for food.
Yeah, so I'm kinda bitter and burnt out from my trade, does it show? ;)
In related news, mostly thanks to kefen, I found the creative vibe to code a little this week, and it felt good, so I should probably not complain. :)
Sep. 23rd, 2007
01:14 am
Holy shit.
Holy shit.
For her birthday, I offered Caroline seats for Le Roi Lion, the Lion King musical in Paris.
I got us seats on the very first row of the first balcony. For the very first avant-première.
It was tonight. We're only just back.
Holy shit.
Words fail me. It was a wonderful, glorious evening.
The musical means something very special to me -- it's a long story that I shall not recount. I saw it twice before, once in Broadway, once in London. I had never thought, back then, all those years back, that they'd end up setting it up in Paris. I had never thought we'd manage to be there, right there, for the very, very opening, my lover and I.
I have now seen it thrice, and this time, the third time, was possibly the best.
The cast was perfect. I was worried about how they'd find enough talent in the entire damn country to fill all the cast. I shouldn't have. Every last one of them was excellent, credible, intense, full of emotion, full of life.
I was worried about how well the whole play would translate. Well: perfectly. They made the choice of using a very modern and somewhat colloquial kind of French, and it work, it just works, it lives.
The théâtre Mogador has a relatively smaller scene, comparatively to that of the New Amsterdam Theatre where the show began on Broadway, and yet they managed to make it work just plain fine, from beginning to end.
Right from the moment the first elephant appeared on the scene, the audience went wild. This was by far the warmest audience I have seen at the musical; they laughed and they clapped and applauded, and when it was over everybody was up on their feet and clapped even louder and cheered at the top of their lungs, again, and again, and again, and when everybody left the theatre they were still laughing and singing in the streets of Paris.
And no, even the third time seeing it doesn't get old. There's one million little details I had not noticed before. There are small bits of African costumery that I had never paid attention to before, and that, having lived there a small while, I can now name for what they are.
And even without all that, the show is still colorful, intense, lively; they sing, they jump, they dance, they act, everything flows like a bright and vivid dream and my heart is still beating to the rhythm of that music and I want to see it again, damnit.
While they will likely prolong the show as long as it remains popular, for now they're aiming for it to last until early 2008. So get your tickets now, people. You may only have a few months.
Sep. 16th, 2007
12:17 am - Back.
Back from vacation!
All in all, in a little over one week, we drove well over 3,000km, which is by far our current record and more than a little bit crazy. Thankfully I've got a bit under one more week off left, so I'll just sit around and chill and presumably sleep lots, but my poor girl resumes work on Monday so let's have a thought for her. :/
So we drove around lots. Got lost then found our way. Found ourselves stranded without a place to stay for the night on account of half of England staying in hotels in France at this time of year, apparently. Remained unfazed and resourceful, absorbed an unhealthy chunk of the ungodly good food that make southwestern France's worldwide reputation, for moral support, and then in a mere couple phone calls from a deserted parking lot at night, arranged ourselves a room in a very nice hotel close to the best sights.
Essentially, the region of Périgord is all about ancient limestone plateaus that rose between the volcanic chain of the Massif Central and the much younger Pyrénées, and subsequently got eroded, and gave way to a relatively dry but geologically rich landscape, making it one of the oldest known continuously inhabited areas since man got off the tree. In practice, this translates into tiny windy roads into remote places (although nothing on par with Saint Lucia, don't you worry), LOTS of prehistoric settlements such as the famous Lascaux caves, more medieval and Renaissance castles than you can shake a trebuchet at, and a very typical production of food centered on goose, duck, fattened goose liver, fattened duck liver, and goose and duck cooked in goose grease. With potatoes. Also cooked in goose grease.
And wine.
We ate, shall we say, fairly well.
That's about all I'm going to go into right now, but there's one more little thing I intend to post about. Coming up soon.
Sep. 11th, 2007
12:35 am - EF Highlights
Quick highlights from EF:
– God, I'm so, so tired. Rushing out of work to then spend hours in the car, and then half the next day driving as well, sucked. But hey, seeing as it was that or miss EF, I guess it was worth it. But I'm so damn tired.
– Things I was worried about went WAY better than I dared hope, mostly thanks to the awesomeness of those involved. (And yes, if you think this means you, then it almost certainly does.) ♥
– The convention is definitely losing the cozy, intimate feel it used to have, where you could go and join groups of people you didn't know and make friends in minutes. It's just too big for that, I guess. This being said, the hotel was very nice.
– I attended next to no SIG, and was underwhelmed by those I did. Perhaps my interest in the fandom's thematics is shifting instead to its people themselves, who knows. I spent a LOT of time just hanging out with people and playing board and card games, at any rate.
– My bottle of Chartreuse was once again hugely popular. I think I'll make it a personal tradition to bring one every year if I can!
– Other bits of organizational stuff felt, how could I put it... perhaps not as smoothly run as when the con was smaller? I don't know. There was a LOT of waiting at the art show pickup and before the Pawpet Show. Not that I'm blaming anyone, mind; things went pretty darn fine, all in all.
– The Pawpet Show took a definite turn toward more adult themes, and pulled it off with flying colors. Perhaps their best ever, possibly surpassing even that of EF 10.
– Art show was perhaps a bit underwhelming (or perhaps it is just me growing jaded? :)), although I did score a coupla nice pieces, one of which I got for a real bargain, considering how great it is, and how insanely high some other pieces went for.
– Speaking of which, that skunkette had an absolutely adorable expression, and the texture of her tail fur was lovely, but there were definite anatomic issues in the composition, with her legs in particular, and I was just not bidding more than what I already had. This being said, the massage was most excellent. *coughs!*
– Oh, and, I'm, err, just simply not very comfortable on stages, in case you were wondering. :)
All in all, a most excellent time was had.
And now we'll be off onto the roads again, because we're still in vacation, and will be departing toward the Atlantic coast of France tomorrow. Although I'm very much not looking forward to more driving, honestly.
Sep. 5th, 2007
04:33 pm - Tiredness.
I wanted to make a longer pre-EF post, but work is being ass so this will have to suffice.
I guess I'm about as ready as I'm going to be. I came in to work one hour early this morning so as to leave one hour early this evening, and then we rush to the German border where we've booked an hotel room, so that we can leave from there early tomorrow and hopefully reach the convention site before the afternoon is old.
This all sucks and I'm frankly tired, but I'm real damn glad I'll get to see those of you guys who'll be there.
![[mood icon]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/growf/dwaggins/snore.gif){kind=small}
tiredAug. 17th, 2007
12:16 pm
For about one hour starting about right now, the eye of hurricane Dean will be passing right north of Saint Lucia, so let us please have a thought for unblue who is, at this time, sheltered in his bathroom right in the middle of the worst of it. :/
Aug. 6th, 2007
05:41 pm - In other news...
I officially vote this best ad of the entire year, for about one million reasons. *bounces in rhythm*
Jul. 6th, 2007
11:57 am - Eh. :)
Usually, the sort of 'OMG funny!' emails that are sent among coworkers -- you know, old jokes presumably made new again by virtue of being wrapped in a 10MB Powerpoint file and links to today's vaguely fancy news story about animals in some foreign country -- doesn't tend to amuse me all that much, but this made both my day and a suitable excuse to attempt those fancy embedded flash movie things for the first time.
(Warning: cute.)
Jul. 2nd, 2007
03:39 pm - Mystery.
Right.
So there exists, somewhere, someone who figured they had something very important to contribute to a very old post of mine, dated from years ago. The information was of such importance they had to post anonymously.
The title of their post is, quote, 'JpecZJEkfwtVmngJk'.
The content of their post is, quote, 'a6a7d2745ee994377352f07b209ce0d6'.
Alright... so.
Might be spam... but if so, that has the most obscure spam EVER. Aren't they supposed to point you to their site or something?
On the other hand:
That the post's contents is a valid hexadecimal string would tend to show that the post is not absolutely random. The relatively low entropy of title corroborates that idea.
That the length of the title covers almost exactly the length of the hexadecimal string, once decoded to ASCII, actually makes me think of one-time-pad encryption.
In other words: What. The. Fuck.
I am baffled. :) Any ideas?
[Edit: A winner is growf, who did the clever thing and offered a suitably plausible explanation. Thank you, growf. :)]
Jun. 26th, 2007
06:38 pm - Hum.
issarlk and I discovered today that, much to our surprise, the head of our department didn't know about Goatse.
... Now he does.
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