rusty_halo

( I'm a Gryffindor! )

And in other news, there's some wacky protesting going on in Union Square park today. Bush supporters, pro-choicers, and Hare Krishnas all interacting. We're watching it from our office windows....

I had this very disturbing dream last night that all the dogs of the world were rising up and taking control over their human masters.

The last part was me and my brother in this creepy old haunted house in the middle of a foggy night with a full moon. As we looked out the window we saw this huge pack of dogs overwhelm and devour a man who was running toward the house.

My brother ran into the other room to call the police, leaving me in the main room as the dogs swarmed into the house. I stood on the couch and tried to re-establish dominance by yelling at them very loudly. Then I woke up, probably right before I would've gotten killed by a pack of rebellious dogs.

*sigh*

I think this dream was inspired by the fact that my cats were acting insane yesterday. They refused to let me sleep for more than a half hour straight--they were constantly fighting with each other, jumping on the bed, climbing on me, biting my head, and so on. Gee, I wonder why I'd have a dream about domestic animals completely taking over their humans' lives...

Of course, they're fine when I'm petting them or playing with them; it's just when I try to do anything else that they get upset....

Aside from the cats being evil, things are going well.

- I got my final grades for this semester: two A- and one A. This brings my cumulative GPA to 3.506 which means I graduate with honors.

- For a graduation gift, my boss is paying my admission fee for an upcoming Buffy con. He came up with this himself. How cool is it that I work with people from whom I don't have to hide my interests?

- I have free time! Work during the day, yes, but the evenings are mine. (Well, mine and my cats'....)

- wiseacress let me archive "Beggars Would Ride." I've been bugging her about this forever. (It's a great story; check it out.)

- drujan is flying to Vegas with me for Writercon. We're arriving Tuesday night and leaving Monday night. (We're staying together early in the week; then I'm going to stay with my Writercon roommates since drujan isn't actually interested in the con.)

- Did I mention I'm done with school forever?

Today is so strange.

I got all Gothed out for Halloween. I couldn't help it; it's my favorite holiday. Everyone at work looked at me weird. It's sort of a toned-down Goth, though, but still. Stands out. No one else even dressed up, and my boss forgot it was Halloween. How can you forget Halloween!?

Workmen are drilling outside, very, very loudly, and almost in our office. They're redoing the front of the building, right outside our windows (and one wall of our office is all windows). I mean they're so close that you can see the workman's butt crack when he leans over to drill--he's about six feet away from me. It's so loud that it's impossible to talk, so my boss (who's usually really picky about this stuff) told us that we could get headphones and listen to music to drown it out. So I'm listening to the Cruxshadows' album Wishfire at top volume to drown out the drilling.

This is an unbelievably brilliant record. Everyone should go buy it now (try amazon or isotank). This band is just so smart and thoughtful and creative and interesting. I never hear this kind of thing on the radio anymore; music that's really innovative and lyrics that actually make you both think and feel. They're so interesting; they incorporate lots of mythology (esp Greek and Egyptian), various literary sources (Poe, Lewis Caroll, etc), all these ideas about maintaining your individuality and how to survive in a conformist society, as well as the usual love and relationship type songs. There's real heart and real passion and real hope in this music. I mean real, not the pre-packaged bullshit that you get from MTV and the radio.

The song I'm currently obsessed with is Resist/R, which you should be able to get from Kazaa or other file-sharing places. If you want to try some of their other music, everything on Wishfire is great. Tears is very powerful. Go Away and Return (Coming Home) are slower, if you're into quieter music. And not from this record, but a wonderful song and probably their biggest hit, is Marilyn, My Bitterness, which is totally heart-wrenching. Some other good ones are Eurydice, Leave Me Alone, Cruelty, Heaven's Gaze, Love/Tragedy ... well, lots. Also, since these guys are not on a major record label, if you like what you hear, please do buy the actual records as well.

Their official site, where you can find out more about the band, is Cruxshadows.com, btw. (No, I wasn't paid to write this. I really just haven't felt this strongly about music in a very long time.) Also, they're playing Philadelphia tonight (alas, I'm not going) and NYC tomorrow (I'm definitely going). And they're playing the east coast all month, so check out their list of tourdates here. I first saw them in ... 2000? 2001? with Uranium 235 in this tiny club in Connecticut, and since then I've seen them several more times (most recently at DragonCon). They put on an amazing live show, especially because they're so interactive with the audience (their singer, Rogue, comes into the crowd and sings as he walks around, and climbs on balconys and stuff).

I've also realized how much I miss listening to albums. There's just something more powerful and real about listening to the whole record, in the order intended, that you miss when you download MP3s and listen to them out of order. Most albums have a unifying concept, a theme, a progression; the songs and ideas relate to each other in different ways. You get more out of the experience by listening to the full record; if you're just listening to MP3s, you're missing something. I'm so dependent on MP3s now that I don't even own a CD player, but I'm thinking I really ought to buy one.

Oh yeah, and happy Halloween, everyone. I still haven't been able to catch up with my friends' list; I feel so out-of-touch! But I did archive some Halloween stories today; check out the All About Spike homepage for the list. And don't miss the list of stories that wiseacress is compiling.

I just tried to post and it turned into a big personal rant about my family, so I posted that privately. Now trying again with a real post.

Quick summary of my life at the moment: work is stressful, family is stressful, real life is stressful.

I've been away from LJ for almost a week; I stayed up until 4am last night trying to catch up with all I've missed. I have a hard time skimming anything; I'm obsessively thorough, and so I want to read each and every thing. For the most part, I've not been commenting, since these discussions are days old.

If I've ignored you, it's not a slight; it's just me being busy and away from the internet.

( thoughts on fandom, kerfuffles, fic, etc )

Another stressful day. Last night I was on the phone with my dad and brother from about 8pm to 1am. Turns out the way my brother installed Windows XP (way back when he set up my computer) prevented me from downloading Windows updates, which prevented me from installing the patch to fix the security vulnerability. So I had the worm that everyone else has (msblast) and apparently another one on top of that. So the hours of familial tech support involved: getting rid of the worms, changing my whole configuration to allow me to get Windows updates, trying to get the updates and discovering that one worm was still there, finally actually getting the updates, then running Norton and having it say no viruses. But the worm is still there. Gah. *kills Microsoft, and Norton, and virus writers everywhere*

I'm going to download the Symantec removal tool when I get home. *crosses fingers*

Then when I came in to work today, my boss announced that our biggest web client is going to leave us. It's not our fault; they've got some fancy new program to integrate their website with their entire book database and have it all in one place, so they won't need us for anything except design. (Right now we run their whole site from our own database). So my boss was all upset, and talking to me about what we can do, and what if all our publishing clients move on to programs like this, blah blah blah. I had some suggestions, but basically I think he just wanted to complain. It makes me particularly nervous because my coworker is gone all week, so I have to deal with my boss alone. And because if we keep losing clients, I could lose my job, and that would, y'know, suck. (I think we should move into other areas--yeah, publishers might not need us, but plenty of places still need database-driven websites.)

The new roommate came by yesterday and dropped off her deposit, so that's a relief. (Please let this work out!) I'm glad I don't have to keep putting up ads everywhere. Although she's really strange: she's all dour and suspicious and she doesn't smile. But then, I usually don't smile either, so I guess I shouldn't complain. (But I was trying to be all friendly and stuff, and I know I'm not that good at it, but she could've at least tried to smile back.) I don't think she's the type who wants to be friends; she's obviously just in it for the location and the room. That's okay; I'm not really looking for a friend either. But it would've been nice to be friendly, like I am with my current roommate. We don't hang out, but we say hi when the other one walks in the door, that kind of thing.

And I'm really, really worried about school starting in September. And graduating, and maybe finding another job, and maybe having to move. But I'm really trying not to think about that right now, because it'll make my brain explode if I dwell on it too long.

Anyway, I know it could be worse. In much better news, I've been compiling a big list of stories to archive, and I just contacted a bunch of the authors, and now their confirmations are coming in. Which means I'll have a whole ton of good stuff to archive in the next few days. The new server has been going fine, so as long as it stays that way (*knocks on wood*) I should be able to get a lot done. Speaking of which, I need to go send out my "daily update," that I haven't sent in like four days.

While I was reading fic, I had such difficulty deciding what to archive. I think I've gotten so into fanfic that I can't tell what I'm doing anymore, like what's good and what isn't. Like, is this a PWP, or a beautifully written character exploration? I've read so much fic that I'm losing all perspective as to what's 'in character' or not. It's like, I'll think something is a reasonable extrapolation of the character, but then I've probably read hundreds of other fanfic stories that built up that possibility in my mind in a way that someone who's only seen the show wouldn't see at all. Like, I imagine jaydk reading it and being horrified at the out-of-character-ness. (She's a stickler for canon). Or I imagine my mom stumbling across it and going "Oh my god, this doesn't make any sense at all! And it's porn!" (My mom recently went back to Indiana, where I grew up, and saw my best friend from when I was seven, who's a really serious Christian now, and gave her my website address). Anyway, it's weird. I'm not sure where to draw the line. But I do tend to be infinitely more forgiving when the language used is beautiful or interesting.

And now, back to work ....

There are many reasons I love my job:

I work in a bright, open office.
It's right near the park.
It's a 15 minute walk from my house.
There are no security restrictions on the computers (and if there were, I'd be in charge of them).
I have lots of freedom to learn and try new things.
I get along with my coworkers.
We support progressive social causes.
We're all vegan.
It's within ordering distance of some of the best vegan/vegetarian restaurants in the world.

But the number one reason I love my office:
Friday is pie day! Every Friday, my boss gives us money to buy a pie (or, sometimes, a cake) for the office. Today: fresh cherry pie from the farmer's market. So yummy. Really, pie makes everything better.

Someone has been playing bagpipes right outside the window of my office for the past half hour.

I can feel it ... drilling ... into ... my ... brain.

Hehe ... a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/King of the Hill crossover. Fun.

I spent the weekend catching up on some fic. Read everything I hadn't already read by Caro and Mint Witch. And read some BuffyX and Jane Davitt.

Also got some archiving done, which is always good.

Friday I worked for 14 hours; didn't get home until 10pm. And I'd only slept about 4 hours the night before. That wasn't very fun. But at least I got a lot of work done. Then I came home and slept for 14 hours, which left me feeling crappy. Sleeping for 14 hours? Really not a very good idea. I'm just finally starting to feel alive again.

( spinoff thoughts - spoilery )

I'm debating about whether to post here about the relevance of authorial intent or to archive a few more stories before I go to sleep. Since I'm already tired and starting to feel incoherent, I think I'm going to go with the fic archiving. Since anything I write at this hour probably won't make much sense anyway.