Got out of work early tonight -- they put me on the phones today, and we left at half past eight. Spent three quarters of an hour hanging with some of the former GSU folks. I saw the one guy while he was hanging out in front of school as I was walking home, and we spent some time chatting. There was much ado over a certain cute redheaded professor. Some of the comments made me nearly spit water out my nose. It was nice catching up.

The dream was set in something cross between the UAF Elvey building, a hospital, and the Ministry of Magic, with some overtones of Muggle politics and schoolishness.

Where the legislators were at any given moment was indicated by the yellow balloons with blue ribbons that they wore tied to their wrists. The strings were long, so that the balloons must have floated 20 feet high or higher when unobstructed. The balloons remained outside a room while the legislators went in. There were clusters outside the bathrooms. The mens' bathroom had one male legislator's balloon dangling outside, and one female. We all knew what was happening in there.

There was something about wandering the basement, where the garage with all the machinery had had all the concrete torn up and mashed, and I think there may have been a picnic basket. machinegirl was in my party, I think, and so was Mama. popefelix may have been around as well. I had to carry Mama.

The Little Fayoumis is watching TV right now. Advertisements came on. He went and got a drink, then sat back down to wait for his show. I was emptying the pencil sharpener, and was overhearing rather than listening.

It was an advertisement for some Cinderella-themed movie, with a smooth male voice-over talking about how a girl had discovered she was a princess -- and then the girl's voice: "Shut up!", in the "You have got to be kidding me!" tone.

Suddenly, silence.

"I've heard enough bad words in commercials!" said the Little Fayoumis, sitting there with the remote. He has evidently learned about the mute button.

Hee. Hooray for good taste.

TheFerrett writes about the guy who couldn't stand to see couples touching; I reply with some stuff from my experience. One of the most difficult-to-write things I've ever written.

Thette on the "I know it when I see it" search strategy, with input from me.

Some of this surprised me. I evidently haven't been getting into conversations in my own journal so much anymore. I haven't chatted with some of these people for years.

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I've had "Banned from Argo" and "Never Set the Cat on Fire" in my head for several days now, alternating.

Most recently, my brain started attempting to sing "Never Feed Espresso to the Dialer" to the tune of "Never Set the Cat on Fire", but failed when
a) I couldn't make it scan
b) I couldn't remember the tune to make it scan to
c) I couldn't remember the original words so that I could remember the tune.

However, I have succeeded in mildly traumatizing several non-fen co-workers by mentioning the song by title. Go, me.

This was the room that I lived in at my parents' house from August 1995 until fall 1998, then from spring 1999 until spring 2000, and then for a very brief and chaotic month in the fall of 2000. There were all sorts of things in there. I bring you the highlights, mostly as recorded on a yellow notepad:

Things found:

• a long piece of rope, dirty and tied in many knots and rather grungy, cut into pieces, from the era of the one secret society


• The penholder can that had been varnished with all the leftover ends of nail polish from the tiny little jars of nail polish that Mama gave me one year, the year FatherSir went to Russia with multicolored toenails because we'd used one color on each toenail, with two colors left over (there had been twelve colors, and lipstick to match).


• the broken hilt of the curved GoA sword, the one that the asshat broke.


• ribbons and medals -- 6 medals from the 1998 Alaska state acadec -- 2 silver, 4 bronze.


• The Shoe, the Snapple can (remember, pyrogenic, moonberryq?)


• ISBN 0-380-84392-7 (consigned to the used bookstore from whence I got it)

phrases found:

• Begone, my fair-weather angel.


• "Any psychologically or physically harmful habit is an addiction."


• Gamer quotes: "They're not very happy. In fact, I think they're kinda mad." --Fuzzy Modem, a Shadow fighter against about 10 Galaxy-class starships.


• Plot bunny: guy, dragon, lady. Guy: I rescue lady from dragon. Dragon: I protect guy from lady. Lady: I protect guy from dragon -OR- I protect dragon from guy.


• True love is mutual knowledge, acceptance, and trust of the other.


• moonberryq and pyrogenic are in agreement: I will make an outstanding Jewish mother.


• We're attractive and we've known it / Since we were little tykes / If you want to date us, guys / Tough luck, 'cause we're dykes.


• December is not bleak, she thought. Cold, inhospitable -- but there is life.


• "If there is a possibility something might be controversial, then why not eliminate it." This was a reason given for one of the books banned listed on the ACLU Banned Books Week website.


• My definition of "funk" -- "when formerly melodic instruments are used for beating."


• proofread funky yellow eyelashes


• The glitter in her eye boded Interesting Times for the next man to cross her path.

metaphorge asks: What are your computers and networks named, and do you have a naming convention for your systems?


I respond:

Our network doesn't have a real name. (I'm sure it calls itself something, but that's the name it and other computers call it...) There's no real scheme to our naming, except that the computers that I have often name themselves, either cleverly or based on personality traits of the boxes themselves.

My laptop is named Tigereye, because she is a Dell. (A little too much Jennifer Roberson, back in 2000, I think...)

sorcha007's computer is named Sorcha. She named it. The two former computers of hers were Red and Enki.

marxdarx's computer is named Acknar. He named it.

The computer that was originally merely called "the new computer" named himself Neo after a while. He is happiest running Linux. He is an ancient Compaq.

Neo has a clone/twin who was originally going to have several different OSes. Then we found out his hard drive was damaged. His name is Lord Mark, as he is a clone with brain damage/multiple personalities. He will probably, once he gets a new HD, evolve into a squat, fat, deadly box with an attitude -- or several.

My former palmtop, a Visor Neo, was named Inanna; she was twin to a palmtop named Ishtar. I was planning on naming my next Visor Neo, if anything, Trinity, but I never got another one. I now have a Palm Vx named AzureBlue, for the color of her case. This is, clearly, a literary joke as well as a play on my own name. (Yes, I answer to my online name more than I do my birth name...)

The Mac Quadra 660 AV that I took over for a few years back in the late '90s was named Majel, because she could speak in a very pleasant, if flat, female voice, and respond to voice commands. (swallowtayle and I programmed her to respond snarkily to a few voice commands: if we said, "Computer, open Monopoly," she would respond, "This module is not programmed for game-playing.")

And of course the old computer I was on for a week back at my parents' house -- his name is Guardian. You know, because the Guardian of Forever said, "Let me be your Gateway"....


[Edit: next time I have a box with a really big dick disk and I want it to resist dying mightily, I'm going to name it Rasputin.]

Little Fayoumis was twirling around in the hallway by the kitchen. shammash was crouched there, hiding after I'd shouted that he was winking at me.

"Don't mosh the Mosh!" marxdarx instructed, as the Little Fayoumis tottered into the plastic barrier that can seal the hall closet off from the hall if need be, though it's never closed because the cat box is in the hall closet. I scooped up the Mosh, out of harm's way, the white-socked blotched tabby complaining about being in my arms. "Don't mash the cat. Don't step on the cat. Don't malign the cat. Don't misalign the cat."

"Misalign the cat?" I sputtered, said cat digging holes in one of my navy blue cotton T-shirts.

"Do not misalign the cat," marxdarx repeated firmly.

"Do not misalign the cat," I said, carrying the cat off to my room to clip his claws. "And never set the cat on fire!"

I'm trying to get all my Livejournal friends' locations plotted on a map - please add your location starting with this form. Username: (Then get your friends to!)

Haven't updated your location in a while? New to this thing? It's shiny!

"I love Patrick. He's awesome. He's just stupid in the head sometimes."

The lunchroom and bathrooms are the best places for gossip. Actually, I don't gossip. I don't know half the people, and I'm not interested in getting to know any of the high school crowd, and I'm not interested in knowing half the adults, and quite a few of the other people are either not gossip-worthy or I'm just not interested in gossiping about them.

I consider being snarky with trystan_laryssa, othercat, and Motley an entirely different fish than actual gossip.

Speaking of work -- it hit me like the proverbial unexpected wet newspaper that hey -- I'm a good work reference to put on resumés now. Instead of merely a personal reference, I am a monitor for quality control assurance at the workplace. And a good word from a co-worker who holds a higher position is really actually one of those good things to have. Hee. I am useful!

memnus posts explicit photos of pizza.

Mmmm.

You know what I want?

Turkey pepperoni, cheese, olives (green and black), mushrooms, tomatoes, broccoli, beef sausage, more cheese, onions (sliced thin with a finger-slicer), finely chopped green peppers, red pepper sprinkled on top, and probably other things that are not pineapple nor pork nor fish on top.

Though Alaskan dried salmon ... hmm. Maybe I'll have to do some experimentation.