Author: Polgara

+Go RED SOX!

+Michael Moore is being sought for arrest in the state of Michigan for allegedly bribing students to vote by promising them clean underwear. Yay for free publicity!

+Choose RED SOX!

+Last night Vice President Cheney claimed, among other things, that it was the first time he’d ever met Senator Edwards. Hmm. Apparently he’s never heard of cameras. They’re documenting the rest of Cheney’s many lies at DailyKos.com, but those are the only ones with pictures. 😀

+And did I mention, WOOOO RED SOX!!!

I hate it when I move servers. It takes forever to get everything to work.

Last week my car got a brand new strut. I’m not entirely sure what a strut is, except that it holds the wheel on. I know this, because when they put my car on the hydraulic lift to find out what the troublesome noise was, the wheel fell off, because the strut was broken. Did you know a strut cost $300? I didn’t.

Yesterday my car got a brand new alternator. Unfortunately it didn’t tell me it needed a brand new alternator last week, when it was already at the shop. It waited until I was in the left lane of Sunset Boulevard in Beverly Hills during morning rush hour traffic. Did you know it’s against the law here to stall your car in the middle of traffic? I didn’t. Fortunately the very nice police officer didn’t give me a ticket, even though she was apparently well within her rights; instead she just used her official police pickup truck to push me to the side street, away from the angry shouts of my fellow morning commuters. The new alternator cost $140. On the bright side, I got to spend almost two hours knitting and chatting with Patty, my mechanic’s office manager, who it turns out also knits. Last week I told her all about the cool knitting stores she was missing out on by only going to Joann’s. Yesterday she showed me the $300 worth of yarn she bought over the weekend at Stitches from the Heart. She’s got $140 to go before she equals what I spent on my car.

I’ve now added a new task to my morning routine—begging my car not to break down today. So far it’s working.

I’ve been terribly swamped at work. In addition to the project from hell, last week my colleagues and I stayed until 1am trying to get another project uploaded to meet the unnecessary demands of our client department, and I think I’ve been mentally trying to recover from that all week. Having to bring work home over the weekend certainly didn’t help either.

Technically it’s not all that bad. Crunches this tough happen rarely in my job, probably only once or twice a year, but when they do happen, it drains me something fierce. And yet, I find myself focused in a way that’s hard to obtain under less immediate deadlines. So yes, it has its plusses and minuses.

The problem this time, though, is that the project from hell was really from hell, my own personal version. I’m not a designer, I don’t want to be a designer, so giving me 22-27 hours worth of image manipulation is going to make me a very bitter and resentful person. Unfortunately under these circumstances, I procrastinate like a champion, a huge failing of mine and one which I can’t seem to correct – if I hate it enough, you’ll have to hold a gun to my head to make me do it. In this case, the gun was a looming deadline that (I thought) needed to be met. And yo, I met it. I pride myself on meeting deadlines, even if I have to turn somersaults and work all weekend to do it.

But to find out that I did it all wrong? 27 hours worth of wrong? Gah. I’m feeling broken, and not a little angry, both at myself and at…others.

September 14th has my permission to end now. I’m ready for Wednesday.

I’m feeling very dissatisfied today, but I’m not sure why. I know part of me is frustrated with the new game we’re doing – I’m stuck on the second level, and a bug is keeping me from advancing. Grrrrrr. Also, I hate the project I’m working on right now, and it makes me dread coming into work, which I haven’t felt in a long time. I’m hoping to get the bulk of it done next week while everyone’s on vacation.

In other, less depressing news, on Wednesday I got an email inviting me to audition for Jeopardy. How cool! I’d filled out their online form just last week on a whim, thinking I’d never actually hear anything, but voila! I now have an appointment in just two and a half weeks. I doubt I’ll make it past the 50 question test, but at least it’ll be a fun story, and an excuse to leave work early. I just hope I don’t fail too miserably. Too bad there’s no way to study for a trivia test.

Moving on to yarn, I started a new scarf last night, for a Christmas present, and I’m wondering if I’m wasting my yarn. It’s a beautiful grayish blue wool/alpaca blend, so soft and perfect, and of course, discontinued by the manufacturer. I’m wondering if I’m wasting it on a scarf — maybe I should make my first sweater with it? But then I run the risk of not having enough of it, and not being able to restock. It’s silly, I know, but I just love this yarn, it’s been my favorite since I used it to make my mom’s blanket for her birthday. Were I to win the lottery tomorrow, I’d buy up all the bags that are currently selling on Ebay, in every color. And in that vein, if you happen to run into any Cascade Lana D’Oro yarn in your travels, do me a favor and pick some up for me? Thanks ever so. 😀

My other obsession this week, outside of yarn and the Buffy Xbox game, is the soundtrack to Avenue Q, the Broadway musical that won three Tonys this year. It’s hysterical and I highly recommend it. (Unless you find a song title like “The Internet is for Porn” offensive, in which case, you might want to avoid it instead.) I had to take it out of the car cd player this morning, though – the songs are invading my dreams (along with the Buffy game, which is a very odd mix), and my daily thoughts, so it’s time for a good mental scrubbing before going back. But don’t let that stop you, it’s well worth the ten bucks at iTunes for lyrics like, “The more you love someone, the more you want to kill him” and, “Is there anyone here it doesn’t suck to be?”