rusty_halo

So, I went to Vividcon over the weekend. It was fun. I met many of interesting people and learned a hell of a lot about the history, culture, and aesthetics of vidding. I also had the pleasure of hanging out with the lovely soundingsea for three days. (This is brief–I will probably write up a more detailed con report later.)

And then I went to Lollapalooza and saw Soundgarden–despite arriving late and missing their first four songs, I managed to get to the front, about 15 rows back, without, y’know, shoving anyone or being a jerk. It was loud and muddy and hot and FUCKING AMAZING, you guys, Soundgarden!!! Although I do have to admit that I’m not sure how much of my joy is organic to me at the moment and how much comes from imagining how happy my 14-year-old self would be. But whatever. Soundgarden! They played “Mailman” and “Like Suicide” and “Fourth of July”! And the view of the Chicago skyline was beautiful. I am happy.

Then I walked back to my brother’s apartment and hung out with him for a little while because he was generous enough to let me sleep on his couch. He has a fantastically swanky apartment–one of those condos that was built to sell and has gone rental due to the recession. Huge, new appliances, beautiful view… not that I’m jealous or anything. :P Although he’s going to have to move once the economy picks up, which is not something I’d want to deal with.

His dog, Darth, was the family dog when I was a kid. Darth is now thirteen, nearly blind, totally deaf, and with a funny little white beard. My brother communicates with him in sign language, which is actually pretty amazing to see–Darth clearly understands everything my brother is telling him and is just as enthusiastic and impatient as ever. It’s also funny because even though he’s ancient and tottering, he’s still the same old Darth, sweet and happy and totally opportunistic when it comes to food. I’m glad I got to see him again.

So then I managed to sleep for two hours, got up, went to the airport, caught my 6:30am flight (which due to delays ended up taking fours hours), slept very uncomfortably crammed into a middle seat, came home, slept all day, and am not adjusting so well to the return to work grind. *sigh*

VVC report and recs post coming soon!

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. You can comment here or there.

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Football.

Why does it have to be football?

*claws out eyes*

Also, it’s Merry Christmas, not Happy Holidays, and New York City is scary.

I don’t understand how I came from these people.

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.
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I had kind of a crazy weekend.

I realized that, since I’ll be in Atlanta next weekend, this weekend was my last chance to do all the summery things that I’d been planning and putting off.

( Friday: Museum of Modern Art )

( Saturday: Coney Island )

( Sunday: Lunch with my sociopathic brother and my internet dies just in time for our first Writercon concom meeting )

Originally published at rusty-halo.com. Please click here to comment.
(Anyone can comment on public entries.)

Am I the only person in the world who doesn't think that Daniel Craig is hot? He looks ridiculously goofy, with funny little ears that stick out, and a weird round nose, and a bulky too-big ill-proportioned body on top of which his head looks tiny. Nothing hot there except maybe the eyes, which are at least a nice color.

He's a good actor, though, with depth and charisma and all that good stuff. The movie was great; sort of a "Batman Begins" for the Bond franchise. ( Casino Royale )

I also should note that anyone who enjoyed this movie/likes Bond in general should pick up a DVD of Sharpe's Eagle ($10.76 at Deep Discount DVD) which has both Daniel Craig (looking slightly hotter on account of being much younger) and Sean Bean (Bond's nemesis/slashy true love in "GoldenEye"). Plus it's also a good movie on its own merits.

( BPAL )

Tomorrow my parents are coming here and eating with me at Candle 79. It's probably the nicest vegan restaurant in NYC, so here's hoping my dad isn't too nasty about the food. I still can't believe they agreed to come up here and eat vegan with me. I guess it makes sense, though, because they're going on vacation the next day and can't have any leftovers, plus it's not like they have anyone else to have Thanksgiving with. It'll be my first Thanksgiving with family in four or five years. *fingers crossed*

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?

I'm about to head off to my parents' house in New Jersey, so I'll be away for a few days. Will try to catch up on website stuff when I return. Happy holidays to you all.

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 ....

Many thanks to everyone who has sent birthday wishes.

My mom is taking the family to Florida for a week (as a combination birthday present for me/high school graduation gift for my brother/one last family vacation before the kids are grown up). We're leaving tomorrow at 5am (eek!) and returning Friday evening. I'm feeling rather ambivalent about the trip; on the one hand, the beach and the pool and the nice resort should all be fun. On the other, I'm going to be trapped in one place with my family for a week. So, we'll see how it goes. I'm bringing lots of books, so if nothing else, I'll finally get some non-fanfic reading done.

I don't know if I'm going to have internet access (though I'll certainly try; I'm one of the few people who would prefer going online to hanging out at the beach). So it may take me a while to reply to LJ comments/emails. And AllAboutSpike.com probably won't get updated (*sniffle*) though I'll try to catch up with everything when I get back.

I'm about to finish packing and then head to my parents' house, so see you all in a week. :)