Random Ramblely Rants of DOOM!!!

I repaired my sleep mask a few days ago - the lining had seperated from the foam body, and I stitched it back together. I hadn't realized how much the loose fabric had affected the fit. It's much more snug now.
Because of this, I'm pleased to note that I'm now waking up at six thirty instead of five! :D

Yay for an extra hour and a half of sleep!

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I think I need new sandals. I just walked to the store and back (it's doable if you go before nine!) and they chewed up my feet and I think they gave me blisters. :(

The upside of being a GM: BANNING PEOPLE! :D :D :D
The downside: The banned people complain. Loudly. And at great length. And no, 'ban them more/harder' is not an option.

The upside of being visible in-game: People go 'Wow a GM! :D' and 'I've never actually seen a GM before!' and 'omg it's a GM! o.o'
The downside: People know who I am, and randomly ask me inane questions when I'm right in the middle of dealing with three actual questions at the same time. Also, the way players gravitate towards me going 'Wow a GM!' after someone notices me is disturbingly reminiscent of a zombie horde.

The upside of overtime: Piles of LOOT!
The downside: Sleeeeeeep.......

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Today, for almost the entire day, I played a video game.

And I was paid for it.

I has a job! Finally!
It's the same place Kiryn is working. I'm finally hearing back from them after... what, a month?

Okay, possibly it's recap time. It's sheer madness how fast everything has gone.

Our intrepid hero, having decided to move, promptly found a room near her friends. And by 'promptly', I mean, 'within a few days'. Spent a day or so looking at listings, spent a day looking at rooms, and wham! Rented room.
Sometime during this, my car was repaired. I dropped it off at a random repair shop Mom found, and when it was returned not only was the water pump fixed (did I ever say what was wrong with my car? It was the water pump. I think seals were starting to blow, it was pretty bad), but the driver side mirror which has been broken ever since that close encounter with the concrete had been fixed, and the interior plastic side pieces with rattle endlessly had been bolted down, and the car had been washed, and the inside of the engine compartment had been washed as well. That random repair shop earned a loyal customer that day - it's a pity I moved the day after that.
The engine temperature needle moves now. That is so bizarre.

I had been borrowing Crazy Uncle's truck while my car was in the shop - this was the vehicle I used to go look around at random rooms. On that friday, Crazy Uncle and Mom (and her truck) came with boxes and box-substitutes (otherwise known as 'cloth bags' and 'empty cat litter buckets'), we broke down my room, packed it into boxes, and drove down to my new room, and emptied the trucks. My Awesome Bunk Bed of Awesomeness is staying with Mom, because the ceilings are too low here, and my wardrobe I'm giving to Crazy Uncle so he can use it for Small Cousin. Small Cousin was with us as well, since he's Crazy Uncle's son and needs to be watched at all times. I gave him my scooter 'cuz I don't use it any more. He desperately wanted my sword as well, but that's mine.

I attempted to register at a community college with a good programming department at this time, but was foiled by the calendar. Just the other day I finally managed to register and sign up for classes... and promptly got a phone call from that game testing company, wanting me to know if I were still looking for a job and could come in for another interview the next day.

Cue the next day (today) - I go in for the interview, and a few hours later I get a phone call... asking when I could start.

So starting tomorrow, I am employed. Now I need to figure out what I want to do with the college.

I think I'm pretty much done here. No one is hiring, I'm about out of money, and I've had more than enough of this. It's time to switch to the backup plans.
I will miss the superb rent here. The size of the room never bugged me, and I liked being able to walk to anywhere. The HUM that would not stop HUMMING... that I won't miss. I'm halfway looking forward to moving out, if only for that alone.
I'll save any announcements until after this weekend, though. I was going to talk to Tanis's Mom, see if there's any room - but I kinda doubt there is. And Dad mentioned I could stay with my grandparents, help them out around the place in exchange for room and board. It's a really good idea. The community college in the area even has CS and CIS classes.
So I guess there's no reason to wait until after the weekend. No reason to stay here. Aside from sheer inerta, of course.
*clings to room*

90 degrees today.
Of course, I only discovered this after I got back from walking around outside.
And I didn't even get halfway through all the stores today, so I get to do it again tomorrow. Yay.

On my way back, I was accosted by an old dude with sign language. I have no idea what he wanted. I retain about enough sign language to say, "I don't sign." but telling him this only seemed to encourage him. It was hot and I was tired and my backpack was very heavy from groceries, so eventually I told him 'sorry' and walked away.

Well, either 'sorry' or 'please'. The two signs are very similar, and I don't remember the differences anymore.

A little while ago, a day or so before my last LJ entry, I discovered the little coolant light on my car was blinking. I happened to have half a jug of coolant from the last time this happened, so I went and poured it in. I was kinda concerned with how much I had to pour in, given how recently I had topped it up last, and the coolant light kept blinking afterwards, which concerned me as well. However, I had an interview to go to, and off I went.
And last weekend I went up and visited Mom, and the coolant light kept blinking all through that as well. I was thinking about taking it to the mechanic we've got up there, but didn't get around to it.
Today, as I was going to drive off to D&D, to DM for the very first time since high school, the car almost died coming out of a stop light. I noticed the engine lagging when I shifted gears. As I merged onto the on-ramp, I glanced at the engine temperature gauge and discovered it was halfway to 'overheating'. Given that the needle usually spends its days as far left as it can possibly go (if I took it seriously, it'd be indicating my engine is a block of ice) this was a big deal.
Fortunately, the closest exit was very close indeed, and harbored a gas station, where I purchased another jug of coolant. Then, as the warnings on the coolant container were quite empathic about the 'no opening when hot' thing, I nursed my car back home. It was stressful. The engine stopped lagging, but that may be because I was taking it very slowly indeed. Not that this helped the relentless rise of temperature in the engine, but it made me feel a bit better.
And, after I had eased my car into its usual spot, I looked under it, and there was a giant wet stain on the road... right about where the coolant goes.
So this explains why the coolant light never stopped blinking.

I do not have the money to repair my car. I have no idea what is wrong, aside from some kind of leak. I'm wondering if massive piles of tape would work to fix this...

Well, I was going to be rather disgruntled about today, but my car has almost no damage. It looks like one of the bolts holding the bumper on snapped, but it's not enough to affect the wheel. I was expecting to find my trunk a twisted wreckage, so I am deeply impressed by Saturn.

I had an interview today! It's with a game company, they need people to test their games. This is my last ditch game interview before I start applying for retail jobs. I think it went pretty well. I should hear back pretty soon. One way or another. *hopes*

To get to the interview, I had to drive. Google estimated an hour and twenty minutes, I allotted three.
I got there in an hour and twenty minutes, thereabouts. Sooner, actually, because I discovered my car was out of oil and stopped to fill it/buy more. Much like I discovered yesterday my car was out of radiator fluid and gas.
The radiator fluid light still blinks. It bothers me.

There were two routes available to me. The hour-twenty route took me over a toll bridge. There are three bridges I could pick to cross, and all three of them are a toll bridge (though only in one direction - I need to investigate to see which directions) so I picked the closest one. The other route is supposed to take an hour and forty minutes, and it swings south around Ye Olde Inconvenient Body of Water and comes in from the other direction. If I can't game the toll bridges, I might take that route in the future.

The toll bridges! Okay. So we've got six lanes of traffic, all moving merrily (if slowly) along. Above us are electronic signs telling us which lane is which. This lane is fasttrack only, this lane is cash only, this lane is carpool only, and so on. I'm firmly in the cash only, because I have no fasttrack. I need no fasttrack, and I want no fasttrack. As we're going along, comes another set of signs telling us which lane is which. And then a third set. Everyone is well and truly informed of which lane they should be in, and no one shows any signs of being unhappy with their chosen lane.
(I was a bit concerned because my cash only lane was on the far right, and there was a heavy dashed line to my left that implied I was in an exit only lane, and then it turned solid, but little did I know it was totally not what I should have been worrying about)
Everything is fine and dandy until the actual toll booths come into view. Abruptly, every single person in the three rightmost lanes (including my lane) decided that it was time to merge three lanes to the left.
I am not exaggerating this.
If it were the lanes deciding this, I would be more understanding, but people were completely ignoring lanes. Lanes, quite clearly, are only for pansies and wimps.
I, not knowing what the hell was going on, followed the crowd in the massive lefthand merge. I rather had to, because an extremely large diesel truck wanted to be where I was, and it was either move or be crushed.

This is how I found myself in line for a fasttrack only booth with only a few hundred feet between it and me. I tried moving back over to the cashonly lane, but no one wanted to let me in. The traffic was stop and go, even for fasttrack, so I thought maybe the signs were lying (after all, if the lanes are meaningless...) and we could pay cash there anyway... but no.
I expect to get my shiny $100 fine in the mail any day now.

The interview itself went well. I arrived extremely early, but I hung out in the parking lot for a while playing tanagrams, and showed up at the place on time.
It was kinda weird seeing Kiryn without glasses. I know I must have seen her without them multiple times in the past, but this time I actually really noticed.

Then it was time to leave! This was entirely uneventful until we reach the events I alluded to in my first paragraph.
For some reason, a line of cars were slowing down and stopping in the rightmost lane - the lane I was in, because I was expecting the freeway to split off sometime soon. I didn't think too much of it, because it was right at an exit, and I figured a car had tried to go the wrong way and come to a stop while correcting, and indeed a car did go pulling out of the line of cars and go zipping off to one side before rejoining the lane... but then another car pulled out and merged left, and then the car behind the car behind me rather failed in coming to a complete stop and went slamming into us. And then so did the car behind him.
They were rather muted slams - the cars were going rather slowly by the time they hit us - but they were enough to jolt my car forward. I had managed to stop with enough clearance between me and the car in front of me, so nothing got any further than me. The cars ahead of me finally figured out what they were doing and drove away, revealing... a pile of white fluffy stuff in the middle of the lane. It looked a lot like mattress stuffing.
I and my car seemed mostly uninjured - I was deeply concerned about my trunk, but couldn't see anything - so I drove off. Pretty sure I'm not liable for anything if someone else goes slamming into me, so I think I'm okay.


PS:
While I was typing this, I let Random Female Who Is No Longer Random (And Needs A New Name) in, and we started talking. She thinks I'm cute. ;_;
Also, I may have agreed to go out partying with her.

Here we are, almost April.

I got a job offer from a company. I'm really hoping that works out. I've got about half of the skills they're looking for.
I honestly can't evaluate what my chances are. My estimates are ranging from, "Of course they'll hire you!" to "NEVER IN A THOUSAND YEARS!!!" and skewing towards the latter.

If it falls through, it'll be time to shift to my contingency plan. This is where I start applying to every store in walking distance. The hope is that I'll get a job doing something, be able to keep paying rent, and work on building a modeling reel instead of just a rigging reel. And keep applying to companies, of course.

If by the end of April this contingency plan has not worked, it'll be time to shift to the secondary contingency plan, followed by my last resort contingency plan if that falls through as well. These involve going back to school to get a programming degree and/or moving back in with Mom, respectively.

I don't have any contingency plans after that.


I've also started DMing for one of the D&D groups I'm in. It's to the point where the two DMs are so busy they can really only play once a month. I attempted to dig up my old 2nd edition campaign I ran in high school, but discovered that all I had left were maps and very vague memories.
I'm converting it into a 4th edition campaign - I've got the DMG, the Monster Manual, a rough plan for the adventure... hopefully it'll go better than the game in high school.

So the printer. It is very large. I had intended to place it on the shelf above my desk, but as soon as I had the box open I knew this would not happen.
My two choices were to either attempt to fit it onto the shelf anyway, and just let it overhang in a scary and alarming fashion, or to clear off the top of my filing cabinet and hope it's large enough.
The filing cabinet is covered in one stack of binders, two rather tall stacks of books, an electric grill, and a tub of jerky. These things are all on top of the filing cabinet because there is no other place to put them.
But! The gap between my wardrobe and one of my bookcases is just large enough to fit all of the binders. And I have a binder completely filled with blank graph paper, which is somewhat odd.
And! I can put all the books on top of the bookcase that I keep novels in! I just need to figure out what to do with two purses, four arm weights, three rolls of tape, a bottle of superglue, my old fannypack, my Trigun box set, a box full of random cables, the case for my mac mini...
Maybe I should wedge the printer on the shelf after all.

I've got an extra hanger hanging from my bed, so I hang the purses on that and attach my old fannypack. Now they're out of the way but still accessible. Not that anything in my room is inaccessible. The arm weights I attach to the ladder leading up to my bed. Trigun can be wedged into the bottom shelf where I keep my DVDs (there's only room because half of the DVDs are out, waiting to be ripped and converted to iPod format - it's going to be interesting when I try to put those back), the box of cables can be moved to a different bookcase to replace a random empty box - I don't know why I have that random empty box - and as I'm casting about for a place to put my rolls of tape, my eye lands upon my filing cabinet. "Wow!" I go, "Look at all the room! That's a perfect spot to put the tape!"
Anyway, I find a spot for the tape (where it is inexplicably MAKING NOISE - it probably won't bother me when I'm trying to sleep, though, I fully expect the HUMMING to drown it out), get the books on the top of the bookcase, do a bit of dusting via can of compressed air, and lo! The top of the filing cabinet is clear!
The printer hangs off the edge by a full inch. This is a seriously huge printer. But it does just about everything - it prints, it scans, it copies, it reads cameras, it juggles at parties, you name it. It does not fax, but who faxes anymore?
I don't think it faxes. Maybe I should double-check.

It came with ink, which I wasn't expecting. This means that I didn't have to buy all the extra ink that I did.
This also means that I have more ink than sane men know what to do with. I'm not really sure where I'm going to put it.

The printer has an impressive amount of tape on it. I do appreciate their care in making sure no part of the printer would be damaged in shipping, but at least half of the tape doesn't even have any packing material attached to it, or is holding anything down. It's just there. "Look, this is our scanner bed!" *peel, peel* "You can scan things here!" *peel, peel*
Though peeling off the tape is rather entertaining, because at least half of the supposedly useless tape is, in fact, pointing to secret compartments. And as I peel off the tape, the compartments go popping open.
"Surprise! You have card readers!"
"Surprise! You have a tray where the paper comes out!" "And it's filled with cardboard!"
"Surprise! You have an internal paper tray!"
It's like easter, except with tape. And with easter you're slightly less paranoid that you might miss a few.
Although, come to think of it, maybe not.

The internal paper tray really was a surprise. I probably should have paid a bit more attention to the product description instead of going, "You're the next model number up from what my school uses. My school has nice printers. You print CDs, just like the printers at school. Sold!" Then minor facts like it's almost too large to fit on my filing cabinet (and, in fact, overhangs about an inch) and has an internal paper tray would be less startling.

I only have a six foot cable to attach it to my computer. I'm a bit concerned that it might not be long enough. But, the printer is de-taped (to the best of my knowledge), and it's time to read the manual and plug it in.

No, this cable is totally not long enough. My Box o'Spare Cables does not have a cable that is long enough. Next step, Frys!

...

My Box o'Spare Cables has a game controller in it. Why does it have a game controller?
Clearly I should investigate this box more often.

EDIT:
So the only Frys around here are rather out of my way. I went online and found a nice fifteen foot cable for cheap, and it should get here in a few days. :)

Horray internet!

Again, still job hunting. Cover letters are things of evil. The HUMMING, it HUMS. It does not stop HUMMING and I CANNOT TELL from where it comes. April will be my last month here unless I get a job.

My printer arrived today. Huge box is huge.

On my way back from shopping, I got stopped at the train tracks. 'Cuz a train was coming, and we don't want to go play chicken with a HIGH-SPEED MULTI-TON MASS OF STEEL. One would tend to assume things like this. Man On Foot did not assume this. He went blithely strolling across the tracks, as the train was VISIBLY APPROACHING AT SPEED and laying on the horn. I thought this was the end of train-related stupidity for the day, but once again my expectations were confounded! Man On Bike, shortly after Man On Foot had passed, came whizzing past me, glanced briefly at the VERY CLOSE, VISIBLY APPROACHING AT SPEED train without even slowing down, and went merrily across the tracks. When he passed in front of the train, it was with a clearance of less than ten feet. He made it without being hit, but it was appallingly close.
The really terrible thing is there are three tracks at that crossing, and the train was on the furthest one, so the poor train operator could see him coming. All he could do was keep on the horn in the vain hope that maybe people would realize, hey, THERE IS A TRAIN HERE.

Oh, and it turned out I had a cold. I was sick for a few days, and then got better, and it took my sore throat with it!

I had my first D&D game today with this group I found. It was fun. I pretty much destroyed an entire city. It was the capital city, so the political system is now in pieces, with a once unified empire reduced to a bunch of nobles each trying to carve out their own kingdom from the wreckage.

The group was switching the campaign over from a political intrigue to a more dungeon-crawling type, so the city was going to be annihilated either way... but the fact that I was the one who caused it is still awesome.

(Okay, okay, I was trying to stop a group of people from opening a portal to somewhere by blasting the weakest-looking one, causing the ritual to be disrupted (success! No scary summoned-demon fighting for us!) only for the magic to go out of control, the weak-looking one to go leaping into the center in an effort to stop it, a giant pillar of uncontrolled magic go shooting up through the solid stone roof of the cavern we were in and the keep situated right above it, opening a portal to demonic realms right above the city, whereupon uncounted hoards of demons came swooping out (oops) and all the citizens fled in panic lest they be eaten. We were doing some hardcore fleeing ourselves, for similar reasons. It was epic.)

Actual Chat Log - edited for typos
(4:42:13 PM) Me: hm, random sentence: "I've discovered the joy of tight deadlines and the thrill of successfully completing a project in time."
(4:42:27 PM) Me: I'm not sure if I should use it or not
(4:43:02 PM) Me: because it might imply that I might leave things until the deadline just so I can pull them off on time
(4:43:03 PM) English Major: It sounds okay. Maybe -- "I've felt the pressure of tight deadlines
(4:43:33 PM) Me: hm, yeah, that's better
(4:43:50 PM) English Major: To be a consistent (parallel) construction, it would have to be like
(4:44:42 PM) English Major: I've felt the pressure of meeting tight deadlines, and the thrill of completing successful projects.
(4:44:46 PM) English Major: on time
(4:45:28 PM) Me: that brings up questions of complete and unsuccessful projects
(4:45:46 PM) English Major: Hmmm
(4:46:03 PM) English Major: and the thrill of completing my projects on time
(4:46:37 PM) English Major: thrill? maybe satisfaction.

Sentence before editing: "I've discovered the joy of tight deadlines and the thrill of successfully completing a project in time."
Sentence after editing: "I've felt the pressure of tight deadlines and the satisfaction of completing my projects on time."

Moral of the story: Make friends with English Majors and never let them go.

Blarg.

So, I'm completely out of school. Had a graduation ceremony and everything. I had to give a speech. :(
Turns out I came in second in my class. That was kinda surprising.
Well, surprising and unsurprising. I knew I was getting good grades all through school, and consistently at the top of the class, but I still wasn't expecting it.

I should probably mention I was salutatorian on my resume...

The job thing fell through - turned out the guy didn't have the budget he thought he did - so I'm job hunting once more. I despise cover letters.
It doesn't help that I have a million and one things to distract me (including posting on LJ!), so progress has been somewhat... static.

I'm also coming down with something. I've been feeling really 'blah' for the past few days (I've been chalking it up to procrastination, but it'd be nice to blame illness) and my throat has been acting up again, and just this morning I checked my throat in the mirror and my tonsils are really bright and obvious-looking. Possibly this means that they're swollen.
Every time I think I'm coming down with something, I remind myself I should go buy a thermometer, and every time I get better I completely forget.

But, I've run out of all other distractions, and posing on LJ is the very last gasp, so I'm out of options except to work on the stupid cover letters.

Blarg.

EDIT: I hope I didn't get this from my roommate, he was really really sick last week...

Today, Tanis said "Python for the win!"

It seems he found the Python praise more disturbing than the World of Warcraft reference when he insisted I not post this, or repeat it, or remember that he ever said it.

In other news, I found a LiveJournal widgit for my iPod. Now I can post things wherever I am!
(Mwahahahaha)

P.S. Typing on this thing is such a pain...

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For those of you interested in D&D, I found a pretty neat thread.
It starts with a description of the situation (dire) under the spoiler cut and asks for advice. Five pages of advice later, she posts a description of the battle, which is rather epic.

EDIT:
And she's continued describing the campaign, which is fantastic and awesome in epic ways.

On a totally random note, this song 'Series of Tubes' is awesome. I want it so much.
As soon as I figure out out to pull things off of youtube...

So today I had an interview-type-thing. It wasn't exactly an interview, but it was close.

Every friday, a classmate of mine (former classmate now, I guess) has a party at his place of work. There's this room near the back with two giant TV screens, so we play video games and watch movies and eat pizza. Last friday, he mentioned that a friend of his was looking for people to do some work for him. He went and forwarded my resume and some other guy's resume to his friend, and on monday the friend sent both me and the other guy an email to arrange lunch.

I was somewhat worried that there'd have to be a fight to the death with sharpened spoons between me and my competition, but it seems that he wants to hire us both. Which is good, because the place we went to for lunch didn't have any spoons.

We'll see if it actually pans out - he has to wrangle out some issues with HR - but I may have a job!

*excited dance of glee*

When I moved here, a bit over two years ago, I came with a full compliment of dishes.
I had four tall glasses, plates, bowls, and silverware.

There were four other tall glasses in the cupboard, and as of today only one of those still survive. My four are gone. Every single one of my dishes has a chip in it, except for two giant plates that no one uses. I've been down to one fork for quite some time now, and I haven't actually seen that fork in a week. I had three spoons left, but it looks like one of them had an unfortunate run-in with the garbage disposal. While it's servicable as a grapefruit spoon, it's not good for much else. I wont even get into the fate of my first rice cooker, except that it's the reason I keep my second rice cooker in my room.

And my very favorite mug, which I brought with me, is being used as a coffee mug by one of my roommates. There are coffee stains at the bottom of it.

EDIT: also, I have not seen one of my bowls since my semi-involuntary road trip, and I fear it has been KIA