Things I Learned Last Weekend:

1) Disney Scene-It might be too easy of a game in our household.

2) Lilo & Stitch is becoming a lost Disney treasure. Considering the fact that Lilo has been my Facebook avatar for several months now, I'm distressed by this. Therefore, I'm watching the movie while typing this up.

3) Birdemic is still a fantastic movie to watch with others. As you can hold whole conversations while watching it and not miss much. And something hilarious will always happen between conversations. Also: the roommate is amazing as re-enacting the death of the guy in the cowboy hat.

4) Digital 8 tapes have screws tinier than those in eye glasses. How am I supposed to fix a broken old tape if I can't unscrew it's tiny screws?!

5) Most people find my cat fascinating. But only my friends and family feel the need to diagnose my cat with various special needs. I still don't know what this means about me, though.

Television Shows By George R.R. Martin.

My favorite George R.R. Martin show is still the Ron Perlman Beauty & the Beast. Which was, to use an out-dated term, ridonkulous. But in the best/worst way (seriously, go watch the pilot! It is so bizarre-80s-romance-novel-come-to-life that you can't look away!).

But I won't talk about that now. That's for a future conversation.

Possibly over a decade ago, my uncle gave me a copy of A Game of Thrones for Christmas. As most people know, the book hops from character to character for narrating each chapter. And I quickly disliked certain characters, so I started skipping their chapters.

By the time I got half way, I had gotten sick of all the in-world vocabulary and embraced my then-new policy on not finishing books I didn't like (I started the policy after being furious about sticking with Jane Eyre until the end. I hated Mr. Rochester and couldn't understand why practical and sensible Jane put up with him).

Then, many years later, I ignored my friends falling in love with the rest of George R.R. Martin's books. And then ignored everyone going gaga over the HBO series.

Eventually, I gave in and set aside one of the days where I was stuck in bed to watching the show. I watched the first two seasons and the third season had already started, so I watched it up until I caught up with the current run.

And, honestly? Okay, it's good, sure. I wouldn't have kept watching if it wasn't. But... I'm not even close to being obsessed. Just not my cup of tea. The show ends on sensationalist notes but I don't get as riled up by them as I should. Someone lost a limb and I didn't really care. Characters that had been on the show since the pilot died and I didn't care. Marriages happened and I just fucking didn't care.

I do like some of the characters, which is a big improvement over the books. I liked Arya all along, and she's perfect in the show. I wish she was the whole show most episodes. When I read the first book, I liked Jon Snow but now I can't really stand him and his sad emo face-ness and honor. I love how Sansa has grown and changed throughout the series. And, of course, Dinklage is The Man. I liked Danerys more in the beginning than I currently do, but just because she's a little too much of a Madonna figure now.

Or maybe I mean an Evita figure?

After that... man, the show can get boring. And I'd be interested to see official totals on how much screen time certain characters actually get over the length of the entire series and various seasons. I swear, Danerys had maybe half an hour of story this year.

But... seriously, this is what people are freaking out about constantly? It's like if Merlin and LOST had a baby. It's not THAT big of a deal!

Also? Not that big of a deal to get spoiled about episodes. I usually didn't get around to watching things until the Wednesday or Thursday after it aired and one of my supervisors at work often changed her gchat status to a reference to the most recent episode. She totally "spoiled" the ending of the second to last episode of the third season. Which was fine. Seriously.

Also? HBO needs to shorten its opening credits down. Both Game of Thrones and TrueBlood have opening credits that are way too fucking long. I like opening credit sequences and I love the animation in the GoT opening- but it goes on for, like, a whole verse of the song too long.

Of Course!

I'm almost back! Things are finally calming down at work, so I can maybe come here and post for a moment. However, due to the new office lay-out, I don't feel comfortable writing parts of posts during my breaks anymore. So, all blogging will now be done from home. Considering how a good 70% of this blog is just drafts I never finished, I doubt what everyone else sees here will really change much, though.

However, remember when I wrote that entry raving about the natural vanilla perfume, Lavanilla? And then remember when I said I found out I can't have blueberries- among other things?

Both vanilla and almonds were included in that long list of stuff I can't have. So, now I've lost my lovely perfume.

Anyone have any suggestions for natural perfumes that aren't ridiculously priced and don't have vanilla, lemon, or almond in them?

And does anyone want an almost full roller ball bottle of vanilla forever oil?

Almost there. Almost. Almost. Almost. Almost?

I'm in week two of a three week office move. We're almost there. Almost.

All phone companies involved seem confident that they'll be back on schedule and have the new office's phones and internet running by Tuesday. Which will make them only 9 days late!

And that's only the beginning of the story.

I've been trying to go in an hour early and/or stay an hour late most days for the past two weeks. Then this morning I fell asleep in the shower multiple times and decided I should cash in some of that extra time I've built up so that I didn't cause a car accident.

But that might be more because of how, at 10 pm last night, I suddenly decided that the roommate absolutely had to see The Prestige due to how often she references Tesla. Because I'm a responsible adult!


Almost there. I have the weekend. And then I can sneak in some more work on Monday while technically on a vacation day. And then we're in the final week of the move, where we actually are in the new office. We're almost there.

And then I'll have to figure out how to best get to the new office and miss my sweet 20 minute commute.

Meanwhile: Black currant juice is not all that great, but I managed to make it worse. Hurray for me!

This Is What a "I Can't Sleep And It's Almost 3 AM on a Saturday" Post Is Like

I've been lost in a vortex of suck this week due to my office moving to a new location, our fiscal year almost being over, and we're also merging with three other organizations into a Megazord of non-profits that no one knows about.

Oh, and shit just being crazy otherwise as well. I put in almost a whole extra day of spare hours this week just to make it so I could pack up the office's server with a half-hour left in the workweek and not stay late.

And I succeeded in doing so! To celebrate, I dragged my sweaty ass to my cousin's high school production of Peter Pan. She was adorable as Wendy. But drama kids running around the lobby in character before the show creeps me out too much.

But anyway, that was hours ago I'm still awake despite how this would be my one night to get extra sleep. Similarly, on Thursday I had a chance to just walk home from the train and actually go to bed early but for some reason I first went a block up from where I normally walk home, the roommate was walking for exercise on the other side of this new route, and somehow I decided that I would walk 3 miles with her in my terrible Dr. Scholls' shoes that aren't meant for my terrible feet and turned my baby toes into blister monsters (but don't tell the roommate because she will feel guilty about it because she doesn't understand that blisters are the least of my feet concerns). Then I got home late and somehow still was able to shower and get to work in the morning.

In a lazier similar story, I made the roommate watch Cabin in the Woods with me on Amazon Prime a few nights ago and she, a lover of the Halloween franchise, wasn't so fond of it. But also knew absolutely nothing about it other than 1) It was called Cabin in the Woods 2) Joss Whedon co-wrote it 3) Her mother hated it. Considering I saw one single trailer and felt like I knew every twist before it came, I think she got a lot more enjoyment out of it than I did, even though she was very anxious due to feeling like she had no idea where the story was going. Then we had to palate cleanse with a lazy episode of Charmed before feeling like we could go to sleep.

Also: Buzzfeed lists. I'm at the point where I feel like I need to make a list of Buzzfeed lists and include gifs that express my feelings about how uneven and/or not-entirely-thought-out they are. 'Cause... seriously, people. They can be fun, but some of those lists have some MAJOR padding.

The cat is really annoyed that I'm not asleep. As am I, but I don't think that will calm her down.

I'm hungry. I should just go to sleep. Did I mention that I found out what foods my blood has a bad reaction to? Blueberries, people. Blueberries were on the list. That shit is bananas.

Similarly: bananas were also on the list. But I dislike bananas, so I don't care so much about that.

Iron Man 3: Altered in Translation

So, I talked yesterday with a friend that had just seen Iron Man 3 while visiting China. We had a confusing conversation.

Me: It was pretty good, right?
Him: Yeah, it was pretty good. A little disjointed, though. What's the deal with the doctor? They didn't subtitle that at the theater I was at.
Me: Which doctor? Maya?
Him: No, the doctor Tony's talking to.
Me: ... Do you not remember The Avengers?
Him: What? I don't remember any old Asian doctor in The Avengers!
Me: What the hell are you talking about?
Him: The old asian doctor that showed up a few times and had, like, a five minute scene with some pretty girl doctor towards the end.
Me: Are you sure you saw Iron Man 3? Did China show some Asylum knock-off instead?
Him: Well, Robert Downey Jr was in it and it was directed by Shane Black. I'm pretty damn sure I saw the same movie as you.
Me: I'm pretty damn sure you didn't! There's no old asian doctor character!
Him: There totally was! Tony meets him at the New Years Eve party.
Me: ... Ho Yishen?
Him: No, Ho Yishen introduces him to this doctor.
Me: Are you sure?
Him: YES.

So, fifteen minutes later, we were still going back and forth on if he really saw the real movie and I finally Wikipedia'd to find out that China did indeed get four extra minutes of film.

Or, rather, China got four minutes of some other film inserted into Iron Man 3 starring an actor that showed up for about two seconds for the rest of the world's version. As what there is doesn't look like it was even pretending to be the same film as what the rest looked like.

I'm guessing these were, at best, shot by the second unit?

And, apparently, they took out the post-credits scene with Banner and instead made it so Tony's narration is him on the phone with this doctor?

My friend sent me pictures (I don't know how he got them. They don't even look like they could be in the same movie.

Oh, and apparently, I have more thoughts on Iron Man 3 than I thought I did. So... watch out for some future posts.

Car Whoas

I love my car.

I got it due to shitty circumstances and totally didn't feel like I deserved it, which helped me love it even more. It's tiny and efficient and easy to find and has heated seats and can still hold the boxes for a whole IKEA dresser. What the hell is there to NOT love about that?

And I named my car Pedro: Son of Reptar.

The best part was that not only did I love my car, but small children loved my car. My niece loved my car. All elementary school age girls love my car, in fact. I never before have witnessed so many little girls stopping in mid-chase in parks to point at a car that I was drivingMattel might think that a pink convertible is a dream car, but I'm pretty sure a metallic lime green hatchback that looks vaguely like it was modeled on the head of a cartoon dinosaur is the actual dream car of little girls.

Note: Reptar from Rugrats and the lime green Ford Fiesta. Hence part of why I named my car "Pedro: Son of Reptar". The Pedro part came from the name I gave the lizard that died fused to the top of my previous car. It's a long story.

But poor Pedro decided, half way between Chicago and ISU, that sticking to one gear at a time was for losers. And that while being in all those gears at once, acceleration was for losers as well.

So, Pedro went into the shop. Then out of the shop. And then into the shop again this week. Computer error, transmission error, or shift lever- all are being corrected (thank goodness for long warrenties). And, only two days after taking him in, I was given a rental car. A super tricked out limited edition Edge which feels like driving a luxury hovercraft with touchscreen abilities. I'm tempted to try out the park assist but also terrified to try it out. Same goes for the system that alerts and prevents collisions. I did, however, test out the sunroof and the realtime fuel efficiency meter. And connect my phone to it via bluetooth for podcasts.

And now I'm just exhausted by the whole car thing. After getting Pedro fixed then him not being fixed and being too late to rent a car twice, I had to figure out how to be able to park the rental car near my apartment without getting a parking ticket and the more help I got the less helpful it was. My father was emailing with the village about sending faxes of the rental agreement and leaving passes at the police department, but we didn't get the rental until after the village office closed anyway. My roommate was told another story when she walked to the village hall in person. And then, in the end, I just had to park my car around the corner and call a service to make it so it wouldn't get ticketed or towed (and we'll see in the morning if that has actually worked).

While the Edge does have a few things improved from Pedro, I still miss him. Especially his fuel economy. 32-47 mpg beats 16 any day of the week.

I guess it's pretty good that he made it almost two years with no problems other than with the Sync updates (a Microsoft program having major bugs? What are the odds!). Hopefully, though, this will be the last of the issues for a while. He needs to get me to a lot of places in the next few years before he's paid off!