Another Wretched Week...

...over!

I won't bore you with the details, but suffice it to say that this was another ugly week. I was out one day sick, my assistant was out sick today, and the work just flowed in like the stinky waters flooding New Orleans.

And teaching 5 damn group exercise classes a week is beginning to work my very last nerve.

So it has not been a happy week at the Synaptic Discharge

On the plus side, the new G5 is calming down after some initial transition bumps (crashing apps, drivers that needed to be updated, you know how it goes) and this cinema display is real pretty. Even the LaCie 22" CRT monitor seems dim and gray by comparison.

And someone from my past who I was always rather fond of called me from out of the blue. Though he wants a favor, I don't think it will be too painful to help him out. And he promised to -- in so many words -- make it worth my while.

So off to home and maybe to make a new spin mix. Or maybe to crawl into bed, crank up the TiVo, and veg the evening away.

Sorry fellow bloggers for being a commenting deadbeat... I promise to do better next week!

WTF Weather

Two nice days in the 70's and next week it's back to the 80's during the day! Hello! It's about to be October!

I blame George W. Bush for the golbal warming.

Mini Reviews

Commander in Chief: I love Geena Davis! Yes the show got off to a bit of a slow start, but Geena held her own, and we'll see how things go as evil incarnate Speaker of the House Nathan Templeton (played with his usual talent by Donald Sutherland) tries to sabotage her every move. Oh and her son is a total hottie.

Boston Legal: You gotta love James Spader and Shatner together, though Spader I will always associate with the Stargate movie, and Shatner... Shatner will always be James T. Kirk, no matter how many times he says "Denny Crane!" And who is this young cutie?

Hah! Take that, zealots!

Societies worse off 'when they have God on their side'

Finally... Fall?

The weather forecast is for highs in the 70's and lows in the 50's at night: my most favorite weather of all (and coincidentally, the weather they get most of the time in San Francisco). Here in DC, that will probably last all of 2 weeks before it tumbles into a nasty cycle of 50's days and freezing nights.

So I'll try to enjoy it while I can.

Lost about LOST

And yes there will be spoilers.

Okay, what's down the hatch is certainly interesting, but what exactly is going on here? We have the guy that the Doctor met back home, living in some sort of bomb-shelter-like place (except part of it looks lilke a diner) with 70's-80's technology, except, prominently, a brand new washer-dryer set which probably have more sophisticated microchips in them than the computer with the blinking green cursor.* WTF? Though the dirty geodisic dome is cool as well. And what is the guy injecting? I meant to freeze-frame and try to read it, but forgot. I'll check the web later.


* Though our job tracking system at work, an AS/400, still uses an interface with black screens and green type. I use a terminal emulator to run the stupid thing on an iMac in the corner of my desk. So retro!.

Three Random Things

On a Friday night:

1) Tanqueray & Tonics are yummy, especially in summer. Lime is a must, and sadly, diet tonic simply does not make the grade.

2a) I am a slob. There, I said it. I wish I was one of those people who put away things where they belonged when he was done with them, but I am not. I leave clothes strewn about the place. There are piles of DVDs and spin-mix CDs in the living room. This morning's dishes are in the sink (at least I do not let dishes pile up for days; I put them in the dishwasher). And here's a weird thing: I have a double bed, but I only use half of it. The other half has yesterday's newspaper (which I read in bed while having breakfast and coffee) and remotes for the tv and stereo, and sometimes even clean clothes I haven't put away yet. Even though I toss about a fair amount at night, I've never really adapted to all that bed-space.

2b) While dusting has always been one of my most unfavorite things in the entire world (I remember it as an unpleasant childhood chore), I may have been converted by the Swiffer Duster. This little thing is great! No spraying or nasty paper towels, just graze the thing over dusty items and poof they are clean. Maybe this will even help my allergies. My home has never been less dusty!

Oil Refineries

Today, an educational entry at the Synaptic Discharge.

All this talk about oil refineries in the path of hurricanes, and one reporter mentioning that the one he saw was 'as big as a city' made mecurious about these vast and critical complexes. Here's a helpful entry from the Wikipedia.

The Ultimate Computer

Here's my new computer! Like it?

Actually my new computer looks like this (warning, Quicktime VR!), but yesterday when I plugged it into my UPS* and turned it on, the UPS beeped and the "Overload" light came on for a minute. It went off, but came back on a little later! It's drawing too much power! So now I have the computer plugged in one UPS and the 23" monitor plugged in another one. No beeps yet. As Dr. Daystrom said when the M-5 started sucking power from the warp engines, "As the M-5 is asked to do more, it draws more power, just as it takes a man more power to run than to walk." But Mr Spock pointed out that the M-5 was a computer, not a man. Hah!

*Uninterrupted Power Supply: basically a big battery that is constantly charging, that filters the power supply to your expensive electronics to avoid spikes and dips in the voltage that can damage your computer.

Dear Mom

A Recipe for good parental communication (in my family):

I should preface this with the fact that my family does not talk. Especially, we do not talk on the phone. I think that my sister and I are pretty close as our family ties go, but we have not had a phone conversation in years -- neither one of us much likes the phone. We email. So you can imagine how limited my contact is with other relatives. I'm sure this has shaped my current psyche.

Back in college, I was horrified with the way my male suitemates would call their parents on a weekly (or more frequent) basis and just babble on about stuff. I guess that explains today's cell-phone culture. My phone conversations with parents have always involved lengthy awkward silences alternating with stilted dialogue. My father usually admonishing me with some unwelcome advice, and my mother complaining about one thing or another.

Anyway, the recipe:

1) Recieve 1 email from parental unit.
2) Pretend to ignore email for 1-7 days to allow it to fester properly.
3) Ingest 2+ glasses of wine (or 2+ cocktails or 2+ beers; recipient's choice)
4) Once numbness has set in, open email. Scan for verbal booby-traps and guilt trips. By now these should be easily spotted and identified as benign yet annoying parental maneuvers
5) Sift out most bland inquiries; discard troubling queries unless they can be deflected with a blase side comment
6) Compose bland yet witty reply to each bland inquiry (this shows you were paying some attention).
7) Spell check (you did have a few drinks, right?)

Briefly

My Strength class went pretty well this morning (all girls) and things were merely 'really really busy' at work.

Remind me to post on Ben Curtis' interesting trend in the acting roles he has been taking...

Monday Night

I'd like to thank everyone who sent supportive emails and comments after the Sunday Night posting. It is very much appreciated, and I am feeling a bit better today (though maybe it's just the sugar rush from the cranberry juice). It was another hell day at work; they better hire some people soon or there are going to be breakdowns or shootings, or something. If I don't get some time soon to play with my Widgets on my new G5, there is going to be a bloodbath. And everyone is staring covetously at my 23" cinema display. It is quite brilliant, I must say...

Sunday Night

Sitting in bed, drinking lemonade. The Two Towers was on, and I watched for awhile, but it was too depressing as the orcs attacked Helm's Deep and all those Elves were going to die. (Legolas is still way hot, though, and I just love Dominic Monaghan. The casting for those movies was simply brilliant.) I also happened to catch a bit of the Emmys with Shatner and some woman singing the Star Trek theme. That was priceless.

Where was I? Oh, yeah, depressed. The weekend is over already, and I feel like I didn't get anything done, even though I taught 2 classes (including an emergency substitute today) and went in to the office Saturday to rearrange some computers and start preparing the new G5 (though I left it downloading new software) and practiced laminating on the big beast machine -- even though it shouldn't even be my job.

I goofed off this afternoon, didn't go in to the library because of my ankle. And now it's late. I need to get to sleep, get in early. I'm subbing another class Monday night. I don't get paid enough for this crap.

Oh yeah, and it goes without saying that I'm here alone, as I spent the weekend (except for classes) by choice. I just don't feel anything anymore, no real interest in that kind of contact.

I think that's going to be the case from here on in. As Picard said in ST:Generations to Counsellor Troi: "For some time now, I've been aware that there are fewer days ahead than there are behind..."

Part of me hopes it won't be that many more days.

Happy Birthday to Prince Harry

I can't believe that Larry didn't mention that it is his favorite redheaded boy's 21st birthday today!

Best wishes to Prince Harry (who I heard interviewed on BBC news this morning -- he's quite articulate. And that accent! Whew! Makes me dizzy...) Let's all just try to put that Nazi outfit incident behind us, Harry (though I'm sure it's tucked away somewhere for future 'private' interrogations...)

Oh the pain, the pain...

As Doctor Smith used to say on the old Lost in Space show: "The Pain, the pain!"

I turned my ankle on Tuesday night. Not of course doing any sort of exercise, but walking down the sidewalk in Clarendon and looking up at all the new condos springing up everywhere. I didn't look where I was walking and stepped into a little hole in the uneven walkway (uneven because it is chewed up by all the machines involved in the construction). It didn't really hurt at first, but I've been walking on it, did my Club Strength class, and this morning though it was starting to hurt I did my Spin class. Now I'm limping and it's quite painful.

Work hell has died down some, though we are still all scurrying around like panicked rabbits. I learned some new things in Illustrator today though, which is always fun.

Tomorrow I'm going to try to take it easy... I may have to go into work on Saturday just to have some quiet time to get my new Mac set up though...

Insanity

Work has just been crazy. I walked around the shop in August when it was dead saying "Just wait 'till September!" and even I have been overwhelmed. Right now on top of about 5 other projects I am printing out 12 eight-foot by four-foot photos for ABC News for a backdrop for a Nightline episode coming up on Katrina.

Go Me!!

I just have to share an email I just got (names edited out of caution/paranoia):

Hi T.K. - I received some great feedback about your Thursday morning spin class at Georgetown - the member thinks you are "fabulous!"

Keep up the good work!

Erika
Washington Sports Clubs
Area Group Exercise Manager

Although, one must wonder just a bit at the use of the term 'fabulous'...

What was I thinking?

As if I don't have enough on my plate. I agreed to start teaching Club Strength classes at 6:15 every Wednesday morning. Fortunately it's at the Clarendon club near my house, which I can drive to in 5 minutes. No need for the 1/2 hour walk to Georgetown I do on Thursday mornings to teach the 6:30 Spin class.

Thunderbirds are Go! Redux

Well I bought the Thunderbirds DVD, and I guess it was a good investiment since I have watched it at least five times. Don't ask me why. Was it Alan's cuteness? Lady P's fabulousness? Parker's red face? Ben Kingsley's hilarious vamping? Or Bill Paxton's evolution from asshole brother in Weird Science to Hudson in Aliens to numerous other roles to a convincing dad on this movie? Or was it Jonathan Frakes and his fun direction, with the obvious miniatures homage to the old supermarionation, and if that wasn't enough, yes that one blue-lit shot showed an obvious puppet hand controlled by wires on the controls of Thunderbird 1. Good for you Jonathan, it gave me a tingle to see it again on DVD. Good night!

My Weekend

Saturday:

Spin Class
Clean house/laundry
Java Shack to write/read
Catch up on TiVo shows
Program dumbass DVR on the HD tv with Supernatural, Threshold, Invasion (Bones and The Apprentice: Martha Stewart already set on the TiVo)

Sunday:
Spin Class
Volunteer at Library
Grocery Shopping