Happy Independence Day to all of my American friends!

This time next year, if everything goes right, I'll be watching fireworks on both sides of the border, three days apart.

What a nice thought.

Also, happy birthday, Mom!

Hermes is back! Now there's just the hella slow business of reinstallation...

I'm staring at the reactivated K-1 fiance visa application packet.

I've been here before. There's no elation this time, just the quiet feeling of settling in for another long run through the gauntlet.

Deja vu.

This time I'm better armed with knowledge, however. Perhaps things will go right.

I finally got around to pulling everything off of Athena (old desktop) via USB key and putting it onto Hermes (new laptop). At first, Athena didn't even want to boot up, but I forced her into my bidding and we finally were able to pull everything off it. I have music again!

Also Carl is visiting this weekend. Yee!

Next two weekends are busy: bowling on Saturday for Big Brothers/Big Sisters, and the Easter weekend I'm going to Toronto to walk in a parade to help advertise work. (Yeah, ha ha brownnoser, I know.)

Passport has been sent off so that the visa process can start all over again. It should be arriving Monday so we can minimize the amount of time we have to wait for it.

I'm in a good spot right now, financially. Still waiting on the performance/merit raises from last year (supposed to be the second pay in April, sez management), but I'm able to handle my bills and loans and have enough left over to eat, still. Which, compared to where I was last year, is definitely a leg up.

I just need to not feel so damn alone all the time, and life would be perfectly peachy.

DEAR INTERNET

When you are afraid of something, you are WARY of it.
When you are tired of something, you are WEARY of it.

FUCKING LEARN THE DIFFERENCE YOU ILLITERATE FUCKS!

IF I SEE YOU MAKE THIS MISTAKE AGAIN I WILL TAKE A COPY OF WEBSTER'S DICTIONARY AND SHOVE IT UP YOUR ASS SIDEWAYS SO HARD YOU'LL COUGH OUT ALL THE WORDS THAT START WITH 'Q'.

No love,
Me

edit: this has nothing to do with my f-list, just that I've read one too many forum postings with poor spelling today.

Laptop with borrowed free WiFi connection, check.
$4 cafe latte that looks cooler than it tastes, check.
Worldweary look and mussed hair from the wind, check.
Mr. Rogers-like brown pullover, check.
Niche t-shirt with random Chinese characters on it, check.
Shirt is from Firefly = ++ geek points

I'm just killing time before I go to the pub with some workmates. I don't usually sit here and do this, but I can see the appeal.

Laptops are boss.

Booking flights is scary.

Also, I can't help but wonder if I'm going to be one of those people who is told 'lol too fat to fly'.

I know, I know. You'd think I'd be more worried about the plane falling out of the sky than whether or not my ass fits in an American Airlines seat.

Oh well. Almost have this travel thing handled, as soon as the payment on my Visa goes through - then I can book the sumbitch, and then arrange for a Red Car.

ps: I do not want to go back to work. I would sooner stab my eyes out than go back there. However, I have a cat to feed.

LLAMASLUG IS GOING TO EAT YOUR FAMILY

Yep.

29 years on this rock.

This year has to be better than the last.

Thanks for remembering, sweetbabu.

After shower edit: oh my god so many gray hairs where did they all come from D: DO NOT WANT

This had better not be the benchmark for 2009 or I'm going to choke a bitch.

My head isn't as stuffed as it was, but my left ear is now plugged and I'm coughing so hard I have pains under my ribs, and my throat is sore. Let's not even mention my poor achingly raw nose from blowing it so much.

I've spent the past four days on the couch (except Friday when I went to work and I seriously wish I hadn't, I could've used the extra recuperating time) doing nothing but sleeping, watching TV and playing around on Hermes. I don't have the energy or the balance to do more. My apartment is a mess, I have almost no human OR cat food, and I work tomorrow.

I spent the past year mostly dodging the 'holy hell I'm sick' bullet, and now I took a total headshot thanks to disease-factory coworkers.

I AM SO GRUMPY but it may be the fever talking

but dear god i love hermes laptops are amazing ++

I'd join the bevy of 'Happy New Year' posts, but I don't feel happy - just sick as a dog. I think this Cold XP stuff is taking the edge off it, but I still feel rotten. My head is stuffed, my ears are itchy, and I'm tired as hell even after sleeping for nearly 10 hours. And I have to go to work tomorrow.

But still. Happy New Year to all, may it be full of good things for all.

City of Heroes runs magnificently on this thing. ohmygod it's full of amazing. squee! squee I say!

Posting from my Christmas present: my new laptop. I'm not used to such things - for one, it's very warm (I keep worrying I'm going to overheat it), for two, it's very powerful.

I'm in love with my little bronze god, and like the desktop before it carries a proud name. My old desktop was Athena: the goddess of war and knowledge, who let me surf countless internet pages and let me wage war in various online games. This laptop is henceforth known as Hermes for its speed, portability, and the fact that yes, it really is bronze-coloured.

Gratuitous specs: Dual core 2 GHz Intel edit: Centrino, not Celeron** processors, 4GB RAM, an nVidia card running 256 MB, Windows Vista Home 64-bit, CD/DVD burner drive, and a 15.5" widescreen. Vista intimidates the hell out of me, though - the hell is this 'Windows Defender' thing? Why does it have all this silly 'do you want to run this program' stuff? Argh.

I think I did okay, considering it's an HP computer. I'm getting used to Vista - it has some special quirks that XP doesn't have, and lacks some things XP did have. But I'm in the slow process of installing all my programs, making sure they're compatible with Vista, and generally getting used to having a tiny little laptop instead of a great big desktop. I still have Athena while I continue to transfer stuff over, but to say I'm not used to any of this is an understatement.

Still... so totally excited. It's so PRETTY.

So it's going to be President Obama, is it?

Let's see if he has as meteoric and abrupt a tenure as JFK: charismatic, a minority (although JFK was Catholic, and Obama is black - huge differences there!), appears to say all the right things, and already being threatened with death. So how long is he going to be in office before some guy up in a book repository reaches out and touches him with a couple high-calibre bullets in the brainpan?

It will be interesting, but even despite my distance from the election, I can't help but feel that I've just witnessed something big.

Good luck, Barack. The fate of America, and as a result the world, is resting on your shoulders.

Shit.

Someone talked about leading a Brownie pack here in town.

Trigger massive memory recall.

whoooah mah god. It's like recovering from amnesia... and it's full of some good shit.

Your results:
You are Wash (Ship Pilot)

Wash (Ship Pilot) 80% Jayne Cobb (Mercenary) 80% Zoe Washburne (Second-in-command) 70% Malcolm Reynolds (Captain) 65% Kaylee Frye (Ship Mechanic) 60% A Reaver (Cannibal) 50% Dr. Simon Tam (Ship Medic) 50% Derrial Book (Shepherd) 35% Inara Serra (Companion) 20% River (Stowaway) 20% Alliance 20%

You are a pilot with a good if not silly sense of humor. You take pride in your collection of toys. You love your significant other.

Click here to take the Serenity Personality Quiz


So I'm a mix between the goofiest guy on the ship, and the biggest asshole in the 'verse? That's... epic. And awesome.

I'm also retarded for Jayne.

Makes me glad I wasn't on the Firefly bandwagon back when - I would've been really sad when it got nerfed. Now I just get to watch it and know that's it.

Taken from a chatlog I had with a friend about my trip down on Friday.

I had a horrible ride down. It was a comedy of errors and pain.

12:28 AM me: Traffic was great, but Hell is other people. At the Toronto terminal, there were ... oh, I'd say 200+ people trying to get onto my bus. I got into a shouting match with some bitch who tried to cut in line in front of me. (I never really shout either, so it was as much a surprise to me as it was to her when this meek fat girl with her nose in a book who's been standing in line for an hour and is feeling ill from exhaust fumes hauls off and goes 'I SAID THE BACK OF THE LINE IS OVER THERE, BITCH'.)

12:29 AM Daniel: Haha! Sorry, its not really funny. I hate when stuff like that happens. Hopefully your trip home will be better, at least?

12:29 am me: Oh. I'm not done yet. *smirks* So they pull a second bus around finally, and I manage to just squeak in for a seat. A window seat too, thank God. My bus is full of tourists. Not just out of country tourists either, oh no. Out of continent tourists. Families of them. My bus is also the connection to New York. Guess where they all wanted to go? I think to myself 'let's just get a nap and this will be over at Fort Erie soon'.

When I regained consciousness...

Me, blinking sleep crud from my eyes, and trying not to crack the douche who's tipped his seat back so far that his bald head is almost in my lap (and I had to resist the urge to start shining it with my pullover sleeve): ... that's a lot of neon for Fort Erie. *looks around out the windows* .... since when did Fort Erie have giant waterfalls?
Me: oh fuck niagara falls fuck
(This means instead of only being five minutes away after crossing the border, I'm twenty five.)
(I'm already running late. It's 9.15 when we hit the border patrol station.)
Me: Well piss shit fuck. I'll have to find a payphone and use my calling card. Problem solved. now I need to get my bag out of the overhead compartme--hey can I stand up and g--ow you stepped on me. Hey can I stand up to --ow you pushed me, you fuck!

12:33 AM Daniel: . . . . Someone /pushed/ you?

12:33 AM me: So I'm the last one off the bus after I FINALLY am able to get out of my seat and get my bag out.
Oh yeah.
And now we stand in line to get our passports looked at, and our luggage pawed through. Well at least half of them didn't have the right papers or something, or they 'fit the profile', because I spent another hour in line, waiting.
Entire families who could barely speak English - as I was unlucky enough to find out as I listened to the guards try to communicate with them - who didn't have their papers and tickets out.
I am ready to choke a dozen bitches now.
I get to the counter. I am THIRTY. SECONDS. at the counter. They look at my passport, my return ticket, and say 'go'.
I go to the luggage inspection counter. The guards (who I must admit were pretty goddamn hot, oh god, uniforms) look at me, look at my single, half-filled duffel bag, and say 'go on'. Meanwhile they've gone through EVERYONE else's bags.
(I figure they realized I was fat and ugly, and my underwear weren't silky and thong-ish, and didn't want to go through my granny panties. :P)
I get back on the bus. I'm very late now. It's 10.15 pm. I told Carl and his family to meet me at the Buffalo station for 10, since that was when I was supposed to get in.
I nap. I wake up as we pull into the station.
The reason I nap is two reasons: one, there is no payphone at the border station.
Two, not a single one of those jerks on the bus would loan me their cell phone for a thirty second call. Either they didn't speak English, or they'd tell me they didn't have a cell phone. (I saw one girl take hers out after and text. wtf.)

When we get to the station, some folks start to get off. The bus is going on to New York after that. I look to my chair companion, who is a young, trendy-looking Asian girl.
Me: Are you getting off here?
Her: *blank stare*
Me: ... are you getting off here? At Buffalo?
Her: *blank stare, holding her cell phone*
Me: /Buffalo/. You getting off?
Her: ... I no know what you say.
Me: *having had enough bullshit for one night* MOVE.

She got my drift. *annoyed grunt*

I got off the bus and hugged Carl and told him 'You had better understand just HOW much I love you to do this.' X) I think I was bitchy.

And I get to do this all again on Monday! HOORAY! ... fuck.