Wondrous Apparitions, Provided by Magicians.

First off, I have re-done my entire livejournal in giant squid. No reason, I just like giant squid. I thought you should know.

Second, when we got home last night, triadruid and I discovered that the toilet in the downstairs bathroom had overflowethed its cup, and the entire bathroom was in standing water. Luckily, zylch, who was there for birthday celebrations, captained a recovery effort that was both very effective and mildly disgusting. A dehumidifier was purchased, and the toilet was stopped from running by the method of turning off the water to the tank, so the immediate crisis has been overcome. I'm thinking of tearing the toilet and sink cabinet out of that bathroom and converting it to a closet. zylch was also instrumental in the planning of that project, so that I feel like it might be doable, if she and diermuid (the other master of toilets in our acquaintance) would assist.

Having solved the toilet problem to the best of our ability, we washed up and went out for sushi, which seemed like the only logical response. The sushi was good enough to largely make up for the horror of the previous hour, so all was well.

Then, kittenpants, triadruid and I went to MicroCenter, so that she could buy him a birthday present and both of us early Yule gifts. Unfortunately, we had taken so long at the toilet problem and the sushi that we really didn't have time to dig into anything. I, being a simple creature and easily distracted by shiny gadgetry, got an iPod. triadruid's gifts are still under consideration. I'm lobbying for him to upgrade his PC.

And then! When we got home, I went to download iTunes so that I could use that shiny new iPod, and discovered that technology has moved on and left me behind. Any version of iTunes new enough to work with the iPod that I got is also new enough that it will not install on my Windows 2000 box. It checks the operating system before installing, and then shuts down. I can get iTunes 7.3.2 for the 2000 box, but the iPod wants at least 7.4. I'm hoping one of you clever individuals knows a way around this problem, because I'm not keen on installing an OS that I don't want just so I can use the toy that I do want. kittenpants has the proper iTunes installed on her XP laptop, but was of the opinion that I wouldn't be able to just use that because the program was keyed to work with only one iPod. I don't know if that's true, having never messed with any of this Apple stuff, and didn't have time to test it last night, so input on that is welcomed also.

Did I start on NaNoWriMo yesterday? Yes.
Did I get any actual writing of any actual novel done? No.
I did get most of the pre-writing done (i.e. decided what the story is about, made some background notes, made some decisions about who was going to be in the story, all that stuff that you're apparently supposed to do in October), though, so I'm counting that as a successful start.

Did I find the best yule present ever for triadruid today, while looking for something completely different? Yes.
Can I actually acquire the thing in question? No, apparently.
The company that makes it has either gone out of business and/or ceased to pay their hosting fees, and the only retailers that might have carried it are small shops in the U.K. I'm gonna keep looking, though.

Sooo....
Asmodeus blew up this afternoon. Well, not actually blew up, I guess. Lost all the water in the radiator suddenly and without warning. That's more accurate, but less concise. Anyway, he had to be towed to the shop, and I'll have to go round to the shop tomorrow and ask them to take a look. For those of you playing along at home, yes, in fact, he *was* just in the shop, and yes, in fact, they *did* say nothing was wrong with his engine.

*sigh*

You know what the worst part is?
I know more than one joke that centers around the phrase "It looks like you blew a seal".

Yesterday I learned:
- How to straight-lace a bodice
- That when I straight-lace my red leather bodice, it almost gets small enough for me to wear properly now, except that this throws off the whole proportion of the thing so that I have slightly too much room in the back and no room at all for my tits in the front. WTF.

Sooo. Does anybody want to buy/barter for a lovely red leather bodice, well-loved, in reasonably good condition? I got it from Crimson Chain out at Faire, and it has stiff leather boning, epaulets and a tabbed bottom edge. It fits people, er... slightly larger than me, except with slightly smaller boobs. I got fitted recently at 34DDD, so I think that if you wore something in the 36-38 range, it would work for you. I found it extremely comfortable and easy to wear, when I could wear it.

Crap, crap, crap. I know what I won't wear at Dragon*Con now. :(
Luckily, I bought a frock coat last year. And I have my hat back. :)

My brain is running oddly today. Yesterday, too. So people who are waiting on questions from me re: my last post will probably have to keep waiting until I can get back on track.

Last night I had a dream in which I was defending the use of masks in classical greek theatre to someone who was insisting that masks did not exist until the Renaissance. Very frustrating, and no research material is available in dreams.

Failed to get a massage from starwyse, even though I had an appointment. Work went to hell in a bucket at about 3 p.m. and I got out of the office late, then sat in traffic forever and a day. Still made it to the Social Justice meeting, though.

Social Justice is working on sending care packages to pagan soldiers (so if you happen to be or have been a pagan soldier, I'd sort of appreciate hearing what you think would be good to send in such a package). Highlight of the meeting was iron_clad dropping by, and getting to watch him ride away on zerself's little scooter. That's a day's worth of funny, right there.

To do list: ( Read more... )

Saturday, I packed up my stuff and went out to the Snake Saturday festival. They have a small arts and crafts show, and it was very inexpensive and easy to get into, so I figured I'd haul a table and some jewelry out there and see if I could make any money... It didn't go as well as I had hoped.
( And here's why. ) ( I'm willing to think it could be me... )
Anyway, the other thing is that I continue to have a large stock of jewelry available. I'm starting to put it online on Etsy, which is pretty cheap and easy to work with. I'm hoping that it's as easy to buy from as it is to list on, but I really don't know. There are only a few pieces up now, but I will be adding more as days go by. If you're interested, take a look at my shop. And feel free to let me know if it's my sense of aesthetics that's gone awry, or the rest of the world's. Knowing the answer to that question would save me a lot of trouble in the long run.

( The Good )

( The Surprising )

( The Not So Much With The Good )

( The Exciting (but not in the happy fun way) )

So, how was your weekend?

The way it was supposed to happen: Friday, at noon, MS is supposed to come by and pick up kittenpants. They're going to run some errands, and then head out to St. Louis, where on Saturday, we were going to attend an event being held by St. Louis Mysteries. They were going early to set up, and also to deliver a newfie puppy to its new people, who were coincidentally in St. Louis. The puppy had been rescued from the pound, where it was on a 10-day road to being put down -- it had been taken from the pound previously, and bitten the person, who had then returned it to the pound. Apparently, this is always a death sentence for a dog, nevermind the fact that this is a 4 month old puppy. Go figure. So MS is saving this dog by taking it to St. Louis.

The plan from there is that triadruid and I will get off work Friday at 5:30, and then drive to St. Louis and meet kittenpants and MS. We would then stay overnight with one of the folk organizing this thing, get up in the morning, spend the day attending and leading workshops, do a big ritual in the evening, and then drive home Saturday night.
( But here's what really happened... )

Let me join today's parade of the disaffected just for a little bit here.

I'm playing the game right now of preparing to be laid off. Some time between this Friday and the end of May, I'll be out of a job. Nobody will tell me when. So I'm trying to get ready to go at any moment.

Part of that is the old spiffing-up-the-resume, prepping-for-the-interviews dance. It's come to my attention recently that all the sharp interview clothes I used to have either have fallen apart, or no longer fit, or are so out of style as to be laughable (which I only care about in the context of interviewing; in order to present the appearance of good corporate drone, one must also present the appearance of good consumer).

So triadruid went with me on Saturday to buy a new interview suit. Sadly, the trip was fruitless, as apparently no matter how much weight I put on, I will still always be several sizes larger on the top than I am on the bottom. I tried on outfit after outfit, only to find that the pants were too big and the jackets were too small. Apparently, if I wish to have professional-looking clothes, I will have to either buy them very very large and have them tailored down to fit, or make friends with someone with similar tastes in clothing who is significantly larger in the bottom half than the top half and trade.
( Cut for gender issues, which I understand are not interesting to anyone but me. )

The King Cake failed utterly yesterday. The dough, for some reason, refused to rise. Perhaps the yeast was no good, or the house was too cold, or something. I have no idea, really. So the experiment was summarily pitched, and will not be repeated. It wouldn't rise when I wanted it to, and now I have cake performance anxiety. Sunday was sort of like that, in the lack of mojo department.
:-/

Other than that, there were four things worth journaling about this weekend, those being a visit to the synagogue on Friday, a dream of supervillainy on Saturday morning, the Nine Inch Nails show Saturday night, and starwyse's party following the show. And, in the manner of chronarchy, I'll tell you about those later.