Last month I took my car in for an oil change and to have the mechanic look into why the car was shimmying and seizing when accelerating uphill. It needed new spark plugs and a transmission flush. Not cheap, but if it gets me through another summer, it would be worth it.

Bah. In the last two weeks the car has started to rattle loudly when idling and squeaking when the wheels turn. So back to the shop it went, but of course it wasn't due to shoddy work on the previous trip (which I didn't think it would, because Butch at Fred's Auto Body is a nice guy). No, it's a possible timing chain issue...'possible' because to make sure, they'd have to pull the engine or whatnot (I'm not a mechanic, I don't know the anatomy of a car) and that's $150 right there. Of course, paying that much to see what's wrong and then not fixing it is silly, so I would have had to pay a lot to fix it, which I elected not to. I think it's to the point where I can't put any more money into that car and feel good about it, because I'm reasonably sure I've put more into the car that it's worth in the four years I've been driving it.

The teal Saturn is 14 years old, so I guess it deserves a break. But I'm dreading buying a new car. My dad really wants me to get a new one, so I can get deals or whatever. We stopped by a Toyota dealership last night for a look at what's out there. There was a green '03 Prius hybrid (Green! Hybrid!) that I theoretically could afford, but it has pretty high mileage. No luck there. I don't have a lot of cash, and no more time this week to go looking, and I'll be busy this weekend so it will be next week before I can spend more money. Guess that's a good thing. I don't get paid until Friday

Wish me luck on the car issue. I don't like being without one, but thank God I live near the Metrolink and can take the train to work.

  From Yesterday, 30 Seconds to Mars

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 9:27 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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For the last few months, the remote that came with my (used) tv has only worked intermittently, which, while annoying, doesn't bother me *that* much, since I mostly only use the tv in my room for watching the morning shows and the occasional prime-time show that I don't want to have to watch in tri-color (yes, the tv in the living room still has large arcs of blue, green and red from the lovely antenna degaussing incident of last fall). But there are several shows I've taped lately that I'd like to watch in my room, and the tv is just far enough from my seat in my bedroom that getting up every commercial break is annoying. Yes, I'm lazy. But when I'm comfortably seated with my laptop on my lap, it's a pain to get everything shifted so I don't have to sit through the commercials.

So. Finally made it to Target last night with the roommate (yay! joint shopping trip) and bought a universal remote, claiming to support my brand of tv. Brought it home, tried all the codes, no go. Of course, I might have difficulty on this one anyway, since it is a tv/vcr. But I tried the vcr codes too, and no luck. I have all the packaging and I cut it open nicely, so maybe they will take it back. But it doesn't change the fact that I need to get another one, and that just bakes my cookies.

On a funny note:

Sunday morning, the morning of the (freaking early and extremely annoying) time change, I woke up right about 10 am. Hit the bathroom, then went back to sleep. Now, there are two alarm clocks by my bed (I only use one as an actual alarm; the other is the one I can actually see. Usually. Right now, there's such a pile of TBR books on my nightstand that I can't see the entirety of the clockface: I can only see the hour digits. So when my phone rang, I looked over and saw it was 11, and thought, man, only an hour of sleep.

Picked up the phone and was utterly confused when I saw my roommate's number. I mean, this was a sunday morning, I thought she was in the apartment. And indeed she was. She thought I might be up, but apparently I didn't respond to knocking, so she called I'd mentioned that we should try to get out more, do some exercise together, because we both need the motivation. So she proposed a trip to the zoo. Then it penetrated my brain that she was in the next room, and I said, "Why are we having this conversation on the phone?"

So we hung up, I moseyed into the bathroom again, and was REALLY confused, because the clocks (yes, we have two clocks in the bathroom, what of it?) said it was 11 am. Now, I hadn't changed those clocks. One was 10 minutes ahead, and one was 10 minutes behind (that's just how they get after a while. You get used to it). So seeing them report what I thought was the right time was just mind-boggling. Did they magically change themselves overnight? Had I changed them and forgotten?

I had to head back into my room and check all the clocks there. Only then did I realize that it was much closer to noon than 11 am, and all was well, but it took me an absurdly long time to figure it out. Sigh.

  Guardians of the Keep, Carol Berg (I love this author!)
file under: rants Posted by Jen at 9:42 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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I can't believe I lost another hat. Where the hell did it go?

I also can't believe a) I managed to hit a curb and blow out a tire on a section of road I've driven hundreds of times and b) how damn much it costs to replace a tire.

And I still have to write a freaking biochem paper.

GRRR. ARGH.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 6:31 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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So yesterday we finally got hi-speed internet for the apartment. Joy. But it certainly wasn't without its hassles.

First, we ordered it last week and never got a tracking number for the modem. Since our service was confirmed to be activated yesterday, I started looking at my account over the weekend to see if I could find out what was wrong. I finally realized monday night that for some reason the shipping address, which I'm pretty sure I specified as being the same as the billing address, only had our apartment number and not the street address. I called AT&T tuesday to see what could be done, and see if they had a tracking number for me. Lo and behold it was wrong there too, and of course they had already shipped it (which is good, I suppose, but don't you think someone would have noticed that it had no street number?)

The lady at AT&T (who was very nice, but I don't remember her name) actually called UPS while I was on the phone with her, and the not-so-nice lady there said there was nothing to be done about it at that moment, I would have to call the next day (when it was to be delivered) and change it with the delivery person. Sigh. So I wake myself up early and call the UPS distribution office and (of course) the package is already out for delivery and has been since 4:30 in the morning (according to the tracking number that the AT&T lady nicely provided). I explain my story over again, and *this* woman says I'll have to wait until there's one attempted delivery before they can change it. You might have noticed by now that I am NOT a morning person. And I was already annoyed that the whole thing had gone wonky, so I tried to be nice as I pointed out, "It has NO ADDRESS. How can it be ATTEMPTED if there is NO ADDRESS to deliver to?" "Oh, we have to check with the sender and see if they have it wrong." "The sender knows it's wrong. You know it's wrong. I know it's wrong. Why can't we change it today? The service is coming on today, and I don't want to pay for a day of service that I can't use because you won't try to change the address." "Oh, alright, I'll call AT&T and make sure this is right, and I'll attempt to call the deliveryperson."

Sigh. Thank goodness. They were supposed to call me at work to confirm that it was going to the right place, but they didn't, of course. I eventually called back to check, and lo and behold, it had arrived! The UPS guy must have thought my roommate was very popular since she had gotten packages (for me, natch) two days in a row.

So. We got the modem. Try to set it up, but the unhelpful folder containing the setup cd doesn't mention the fact that registration won't go through unless your default browser is Internet Exploder (misspelling intended), which both I and the roommate, owning Macs, don't use. So we called AT&T, who was helpful and led us to the setup page (in IE, boo) so we could finish. Why couldn't the folder say, This registration requires IE. If you cannot use IE, please point your browser to.... Would have saved us a lot of trouble.

Okay! Fast internet, as long as you're plugged in. My roommate had a wireless router from her previous apartment, and it had been working, with a small snafu: the setup page was in Italian. Since neither of us speak more Italian than Ciao you can see how this would be a problem. I might have gone for the internet search route first, but my roomie called Linksys, and after about 15 minutes of trying to explain our problem to the tech guy from India (who was obviously just reading off a sheet) it finally got through to him that a) our setup page was in Italian and therefore we had no idea which button to click and b) we were using Macs which technically aren't supported by Linksys (which is stupid, because the setup is EXACTLY THE SAME, just with a different OS look)...

The guy goes, "The setup page is in Italian?"
Us: "Yes, that's what we've been saying."

(Pause. A really long pause)

Him: "JESUS CHRIST!"

Which we both found hilarious. We totally stumped the tech guy, AND made him curse. So eventually we figure out which buttons to press, and we rename the router and configure it. Lo and behold, there is a wireless network! I can connect to it! So can anyone else! Therefore we must change the password.

He wanted us to use our phone number, which we both thought was silly, so we started thinking up combinations of our name and other numbers, etc, and they didn't work. He just kept telling us to use the phone number. Finally we got an error saying it needed a hex code or something, so I asked, "oh, does it have to be numeric?" And he said yes, as if he had been saying that all along, which he hadn't. What would have been so hard about saying, "use your phone # or other numeric code"? Sigh. We ended up using the phone number because we knew we could change it later.

BUT...

Somewhere between renaming the router and changing the password, it all went away. And we couldn't get it back. The guy kept telling us to go to the website and download things, which we couldn't do since everything was messed up. It ended with my roomie hanging up on the guy, unfortunately, and the router won't work now. I tried to reflash the firmware, but I don't think it went through. Ugh.

(ETA: one week later) The kicker of this is that there have been wireless networks floating around the apartment for years. It seems that there is at least one other Linksys router out there, and I think, somehow, we managed to change the settings on THAT router and not our own. I think this, because long after the router was disconnected to anything remotely resembling power or internet, the network we had named was still out there, but unconnectable. And to make it even more fun, one time when I was DIRECTLY connected to our router, the setup page connected us to somone else's router!

(ETA: October 1, 2006) Roomie had friends in town for her birthday, and the guy said the router was probably dead. Sigh. Roomie might try to get a refund since it's not that old, but I don't hold out much hope. I guess we can try getting another one on eBay or sth, because it's rather annoying to know that I could have gotten the network adaptor package and theoretically this wouldn't have happened. we didn't get it because she had the router...hopefully we can get it fixed soon.

And if you managed to read all that, have a cookie.

file under: funny , rants , webetcetera Posted by Jen at 9:50 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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I hate truly dislike the following:

being sick. broken furnaces. forgetting to print out documents needed for the early morning screen the day you get back from vacation. Oh, and freakishly bright blue headlights on cars at night.

Guess which ones were around to bug me this weekend? Oh yes. I'm sick, most likely an effect from my Vegas trip, which I might tell you about someday (I have pictures, really!). The furnace is broken (though we still paid for the gas it used as long as it was kicking on and determining that there was, in fact, no pilot light to be lit), supposedly being fixed today (thank you maintenance!) which might have contributed to me being sick. And I did, of course, feel crappy on Friday, therefore I was a little scatterbrained, therefore I forgot to print out the forms for the subject today. Sigh. I guess it will all work out, as the sickness is better (though not gone...begone, thou foul plague! er.) the furnace should be okay when I get home, and the screen went well today.

On the happy side, I saw the Senior Womens Free Championships in ice skating this weekend. We got to see the ladies that will go on to the Olympics Thanks to Daddy's influential friends, lol. It was cool to see people who were celebrities, or nearly that, and it was odd to realize that even the best in the nation fall sometimes.

And for something completely different: Kate finally got me into a salon for a (just a little belated) birthday present, and yes indeed folks, I have short hair. It's...very curly. I like it, it will just take getting used to. And a lot more hair product. I will have pictures for you, perhaps when I don't feel quite so sick.

Back to work.

  Phil Collins on the radio
  The Illuminator
file under: rants Posted by Jen at 12:38 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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my 8-month old iBook is experiencing some severe technical difficulties. It's a trip to the Apple Store for me. Thank God the saleslady persuaded me to get the extended warranty, even though I'm not near the 1-year warranty that Apple offers.

(I'll take this opportunity to let you PC users laugh at me. But you shouldn't, usually.)

Yesterday I had the laptop at work and used it fine, and put it to sleep before the long trek to the October Writer's Meetup. My car was having its state safety inspection, so no car for Jen. So I took the very good WU shuttle system. Unfortunately, it took an extra long time to get from the med school (work) to the hilltop (shuttle bus nexus, where the shuttle to Borders leaves from) because, God bless him, we had a man in a wheelchair get on at about the middle of the line. It took about 10 minutes each to get him on the bus and off, which made us late for the hilltop (we got passed by the other shuttle running the line) therefore I couldn't catch the shuttle to Borders. Which I might have missed anyway, because when another one came (on time, but a half-hour later than I needed it) the bus driver zoomed off as soon as the last person sat down and didn't wait for anyone else. Usually they wait a minute or two...

Anyway, the point of that little digression was to note that it was a little chilly while waiting for the Borders shuttle, so maybe that mucked things up, but when I got to Borders and opened the lid to begin writing (well, sort of) it chimed at me like I had turned it off and then started it up again. I almost never shut down the computer, since it's a Mac and it likes to be stable and not need restarting, so I know I hadn't done that then. But then the computer just sat there. It was *on* but nothing displayed. So I tried restarting. No go. Then I tried restarting with the power cord, and it worked. Whew.

Alas, when the screensaver came on (since we were talking more than we were writing) it was just white lines on a black background (and no, that is NOT my screensaver), and it wouldn't go away, so another restart. Various ons and offs later, it seemed to be ok, but after a while of working, the screen just went black, but again, the computer was on. And no burned out backlight like on the old laptop. So I called it a day and tried to turn it off, and of course that didn't work well either. Boo.

Got it home, tried a few tricks I know about to get it working, and it did, for a while. Then it did the blank screen again, and I couldn't get it to turn off without unplugging AND removing the battery. Tried to get it to run off a cd to do some diagnostics and it was nothing doing, and the cd is still in the drive to boot (no pun intended). SO I'm going to stop by the Apple Store in the Galleria and hopefully the geniuses there can help me out. This is a bad time for me to lose my laptop, because November is right around the corner and therefore so is NaNo. Sure I can write at work, but my best writings came at about midnight each night last year, and I can't exactly traipse to work in my pj's to write that 'perfect scene' when it wakes me up in the middle of the night.

So pray for me and my Mac, and the next time you see me, please don't laugh at my my iBook. It's on the defensive as it is.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 4:38 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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I cannot fucking believe it. Someone stole my bike. Yes, that bike, the bike that was eaten by squirrels and at least six years old, was stolen off the back porch last night. Now, I did everything right. The bike lock I had was from the WashU police, so the bike was registered with them. It was locked up. Admittedly, due to the height of the deck railing it was only locked through the frame and not the frame and the wheel, but still, it was locked, unlike the bike next door, which was not locked at all, and not taken (probably because when I knocked on the door to tell them that my bike had been stolen he told me that his chain was broken. still, I should think it would be rather easier to replace a broken chain at any store than it would be to get a bike lock cut off...). I did call the police, so a nice police officer came by to take a look at the damage (yes, they pried the railing off and broke it to take the bike) and get the info. And the WU police will look into it, since it is registered with them. Nice of them, since I don't actually go to school there any more.

Guess I won't get the bike repaired, then. I just hope it causes the theif much pain when he (or she, I suppose it could be a she, but I doubt it) realizes he can't shift past the 4th gear or whatever it is. Why on earth would you want a ratty old squirrel-eaten bike that doesn't shift properly?

And then there's the bit where I'm a little freaked because someone came up on the deck and broke the railing and was right there, and I didn't know. Admittedly, I (on the good side of things) had the last orgo lab on saturday and turned in my paper (after being up until 4:30 saturday morning) and came home, watched Ever After, went to a school renaissance festival with the parents, had a very early dinner, read a bit, then crashed about 7 to sleep til 1 am, so it's very possible that I slept through it. Still. Spooky.

In case you didn't get how this was ironic: You remember how I "had" to get a new computer because the old one just completly futzed on me? How I'd been talking of getting a new one for years, but was forced into it? Well, you've probably heard me gripe about getting a new bike for a few months now, but this time I really *can't* get a new one. Not when I don't know if I'll have a job in a month.

I'll call my aunt tomorrow and see if we can work out some sort of month-to-month lease option, because I certainly can't pay for this apartment without a job, but I don't know if I'll have one in 30 days, so I can't exactly give a 30 day notice. And of course the contact at HR was out of the office for the beginning of last week, so nothing there yet. Luigi did tell me they might be starting something that would have me doing just about what I do right now, but nothing's final and he doesn't know when it would be. And that I need to stay off the computer. Problem is, I'm not quite sure that I would want to be doing the same things. New experience is good. And possibly in another direction that has a little more to do with what I'm thinking I like. Maybe I don't know what I like. A shame I can't get a job reading books. I'm really good at that.

Sigh. The fortune teller person at the renaissance faire said I should work with words. Well, once someone starts paying me to do that, sure. Until then I fear my novel shall never be finished. It's that whole, can't get an agent until you finish a novel, but can't finish a novel until you have an agent to get you money. Maybe I don't understand the system. But really, it's a moot point, since I don't have a finished book, nor even how the book is *going* to finish.

I'm sure they won't find the bike. My mom pointed out that if I had ever gotten around to getting renter's insurance they probably would have given me something for the bike. Alas. I didn't want to have another monthly payment. Besides, up until now it would have been the same pay-for-something-you'll-never-use, like the warranty on my computer. Runs out before things like backlights go out so they don't do a thing except cost more money. God, I'm a cynic.

On the good side, Ross said that he would be interested in seeing Kingdom of Heaven with me and whoever else comes on friday. Yay. Now all I have to do is get through this week, study alot for the final next wednesday, and orgo will be done and I will have seen Orlando on the big screen. But I won't have a new bike yet. I swear. Irony magnet.

  Jars of Clay: God Will Lift Up Your Head, Redemption Songs

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 12:23 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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ATTENTION! If you're in the St. Louis area this weekend, stop by the Affton Arts & Crafts fair. My mother will have a booth, and you'll really like what she does. Pick up an Easter gift for someone.

After that nice public service announcement...how much things can change in such little time. The end of the entry was written before I found this out...

I just found out that my position will be terminated in April. Tax day, no less. The irony is that I'm 3 for 3 with lab jobs running out of money. The grant they pay me from has been frozen because we're between phases. Joy. There is hope though...a lab down the hall is looking for techs, and I'm supposed to talk to them on Monday. Luigi said good things about me, which is great, so hopefully I'll be able to just go from one to the other.

Huh. Now I guess I won't be able to take that vacation. I doubt they'll be able to pay me for it, either. Perhaps they'll carry over to the next one. My luck, I guess.

Now onto the stuff that was written before I had that most disturbing news.
Moon Names, in relation to the lovely scents that BPAL puts out. Incidentally I just got my shipping confirmation, so hopefully I will come home one day and see a nice little package for me. Also hopefully it will not be in the form of a post-it note on the front door saying "We could not deliver your package" grumble. Just because we have a locked entryway...boo. Just buzz around, people, someone's usually home...

This book looks interesting...gonna head to the bookstore tonight and see if it's around. Robots comes out today. Whee! Perhaps I'll get to see it with my family when they come into town next week. Well, in two weeks, really. It's not quite next week yet...

file under: muses , rants , working Posted by Jen at 5:17 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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And here's another chronicle in the 'Jen's life is weird' saga.
But first, the happy news that the cover of HP 6 is out. *love* So only a month till the next LKH book, two months to KOH, and four months to HBP. And most of the year before the GOF movie, but that's ok And if you know what all those mean, you've read this blog too much, hah.

Sooo, on with the wackiness:
Sunday afternoon I got up late because I could (though I should have gotten up early and started studying orgo, as usual) and headed into the kitchen to make some lunch. In the course of doing that, I realized that a canister of stuffing that was on the bottom level of the shelf next to the fridge had lost its lid. So I went to search for it, and realized that said lid was actually in pieces beneath the shelf. It took me a moment to figure out what that meant, because I noticed that the bulk pack of ramen noodles that has been sitting under the table in the kitchen for over a year (remember the grocery strike here in town, anyone? honestly, it's ok, they have so many preservatives they'd probably last years more) periodically replenished, and minding its own business, was EMPTY! I mean, ten or so packages were just gone. At first I thought, well, maybe my roommate was exceedingly hungry and she ate all of them, which I of course immediately knew was silly. So I looked around the kitchen, just to see if they'd somehow migrated somewhere else, and lo and behold, I see a package sticking out of the crevice between the wall and the dishwasher. I go to investigate, and sure enough, the package has been chewed, and there are several more wedged back there!

Unfortunately the crevice is terribly situated so that it's nearly impossible to put anything in there to clean it out, but I'll try. So yes, some animal had managed to pull every single one of the crinkly plastic packages out of the box (where they were squished and partly under plastic, I want to add), across the wooden floor, shred some of them up, and stuff them in their little hideyhole, all without waking me up. Jeez. Greedy little buggers.

So I put in a maintenace request, not quite sure if that was the thing to do, but a guy came in yesterday and left some bait under the sink, where there's a hole leading to the dishwasher intake. I'm glad he did it (and he said he would order a door sweep as well, to stop up the gap between the back door and the floor, and hopefully keep other little creatures from entering) but I'm worried that a) I'll freak out when/if I see a little dead mouse on the bait (which is silly, really, since I see dead mice all the time around here at work, but come on, dead things not in science context are a little gross) or b) the mouse or whatever it is won't die on the bait and it will just start decomposing behind the dishwasher. Ew. I suppose if we notice something noxious in that general vicinity there will be another request, this time for removal of the dishwasher. Not that we use it much anyway, but what a pain.

So alternately I hope and dread to find a mouse under the sink (and it's sooo silly how I freaked out last night when I heard a noise coming from the kitchen, and I looked, but just as I opened the cabinet I heard a scratching noise, so I took my hand off the handle. No mouse, but there could have been) because then it will hopefully be the end of it, but then I have to clean up. Boo. But then I worry if I don't find it, you get the icky scenario detailed above. Ew again.

Luckily ramen noodles are cheap and I have replenished my supply. Rest assured they will not reside on the floor anymore. I wish no critters in my living space! I feel like such a girl, to be frightened by noises or death. Ah well.

I always thought that my life wasn't all that exciting, but then I have times like this. That same day, about an hour before I was to head out for my mother's first art show of the year, just after I realized there was a mouse in the house (remind me to tell you about the mouse in my parents' house, the ridding of which I slept through), I was inundated by emails telling me that spam had been stopped on my site. This is good, except that when 300 spam comments are moderated, that means 300 emails saying so show up in my inbox. What a pain.

Happy now, Alex? Lots of news.

  Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves sdtk

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 12:20 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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illusions shattered,
emotions scattered.
better learn what was wrong,
and do it right.

Now.

Sigh. Wish me luck on the orgo lab midterm tonight. And if any of you could find a way for OS 10.3.8 to let an OS 9.2 application use my Epson Stylus CX4600, do let me know.

I shouldn't have wasted those days
And afternoons and mornings
I threw them all away

  Orgo lab manual
file under: rants Posted by Jen at 4:13 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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I could cry. I won't since I'm pretty tired and crying takes up energy; besides, it's a little childish. Anyway, I've tried pretty hard to not have anything scheduled at work for the week of spring break, but I found out yesterday that something had. No biggie. I come in a day. Not like I'm going anywhere. I just wanted some time off. But unless something magical happens I probably won't get to take that week off at all, since it's right in the middle of grant time and we need results. If I get anything it will probably be just a few days. And here I was thinking that I'd have the entire week to study for orgo, no distractions. Hah. Well, that's my luck. I just really need a vacation. I took a few days off for Christmas and New Years, and Thanksgiving, of course, but the last major time off I had was in June of last year. I have a bunch of vacation days to use. Just got to find a time when I can use them, which isn't always easy. Ah well. Here's hoping.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 10:07 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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So, Happy Valentine's Day! Kate and I had very good dinner-n-a-movie-or-two last night in our Anti-Valentine's Day celebrations, and it was good. It would have been nice had it not rained all day and thus quashed our hopes of going ice skating (which I WILL do this winter! I swear!) but we had a good time anyway and did lots of chatting. Yay. Good luck on your test, Kate. And Daddy, I love you. Happy birthday, again. I'm so happy you made us crab rangoon

( whee! Kingdom of Heaven international trailer! )

And onto the true story of the squirrel-eaten bike...

So, my bike is locked up on the deck behind the apartment, has been ever since I moved in, because there's not really a good place to store it inside, esp. if it's at all icky outside. Still isn't, but there might be some more room for it now that the Christmas tree has made it out of the sunroom. (The tree didn't go far...it's still sitting on the back porch, kindly being a fire hazard, as Kate pointed out, but it's a pain to get down the stairs and right now it's too wet to be carried...) Anyway, the bike sat out all last winter to no ill effect, and all last summer, and most of the fall, since I didn't get to do much biking while orgo was going on. Alas. And so on Saturday, when the weather was just too nice to stay indoors before I headed over to my parents' place for my dad's birthday, I decided to lug the thing down the stairs and bike some Forest Park. I hadn't looked at the bike in months, and what do I find? Almost every piece of plastic that was even remotely near the railing had been gnawed or eaten totally. I mean, teeth marks everywhere. They even got the zipper pulls off my seat pack. And they ate some of the stuffing out of my (relatively new) saddle. Bah.

My aunt says there is nothing good about squirrels. While I like the way they can hold their tails in the air, now I'm inclined to agree with her.

Now all the eating, while annoying, does not stop me from riding the bike. it's just a little uncomfortable to hit the shifters, because they're covered in gouges from sharp little rodent teeth. The bike makes it down the stairs, I put air in the tires, test the brakes, and head off. But when I make it to a small hill, I realized that I couldn't shift past 4 on the small gear...makes going up hills very difficult if you can't shift down. (If you shift into a higher gear is that good for hills or bad? I can never remember which one it is). It's possible that something's just stuck in the deraileur, but I can't fix it on my own, which makes me sad. I even got nice whole-hand gloves (not the fingerless biking gloves, I've got some of those) that are supposed to give some wind protection when biking in the cold so I could do a little bit more biking now.

Alas. I'll probably have to get a new bike, because with all the things I'd have to get replaced or fixed I'm not sure if it's worth it. I mean, it's a lovely green Schwinn Frontier, but it's also about 5 or six years old, and has served me faithfully since then, but it is looking a little ratty around the edges. I guess we'll see. I don't really want to buy a new bike, as the good ones are expensive, but maybe there will be a sale...

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 10:14 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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A bit of page 7: GOOOOO CARDS!!!!

and: Kids Pick Kerry to be the next president. And they've been right the last four times. How uplifting.

Wish Me Luck! Please! Pray! I need all the help I can get!

Yeah. So, Orgo test tonight. Freaking out. Would like to do better than on last test so I could be solidly in an upper grade than the lower, and don't want to disappoint anyone, namely Mother, who is so darn confident in me I just hate to say I did badly. I don't want to do badly, but there's that realistic voice shouting at the back of my head, you will fail. Where did that come from? I used to be confident in my test taking skills, I was smart enough to figure things out, and suddenly now I'm not. How did I prepare for tests back in high school when I hardly ever got anything below an A? I hate not feeling prepared but then I hate studying. I'm just screwed.

I just wish I was able to channel the same single-minded determination to studying organic chemistry like I can to reading, or writing, or drawing, or anything I like. Had a few ideas for my NaNo story last night, of course. Thank you Lauren for telling me about teh music.

Right, so I was going to tell you how this day has been stressful...

so I stayed up late last night 'studying' (with the attendant procrastination tactics, of course) and sometime during the night, the LCD screen on my cd player decided to not light up anymore. But the rest of it works. Does anyone see an unwelcome trend here with things I own not lighting up properly (re: the watch I'm currently wearing decided it wouldn't let the Indiglo part of the light work, but everything else does...) This stressed me out, even if it's a small thing. I don't want to have to get a new stereo. I didn't get enough sleep (OF COURSE), so when the alarm went off, I hit snooze...and somehow missed the next one. And it didn't go off again...so I slept for an extra 45 minutes. Which was probably good for my body, but bad for my mind, since I woke up and freaked out that I was almost late for work. Which isn't terrible since I didn't have anything that HAD to start at 9 am, but I would have liked to have been done earlier. Anyway.

Then there was traffic. Ugh. And they've blocked off a good portion of the lot that I park on so I had to go all the way down to the boonies to get a spot. Ugh. So when I finally get to work (lugging the heavy backpack with the stupid orgo text and solutions manual inside) I got right to work, but it was so hard to get into the 'work' frame of mind. I guess I got there. Eventually. Then I tried to study during my time off...which sort of worked, except I kept finding things I didn't remember. Ugh. And I almost got to leave really early, but Luigi wanted me to find some samples. So now that you've read through this really long entry it's going to stop abruptly so I can go study and cram as many homework examples into my head as possible in two hours. Wish me luck.

  Dave Matthews Band: Two Step

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 4:19 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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WARNING: This is a reconstruction of a rant about Organic Chemistry, since (OF COURSE) IE decided to 'unexpectedly quit' on my after I had a really long one written, just before I had saved it...ugh! Feel free to skip it, I doubt there is much of import in it to anyone but me.

[ETA: Page 7. Hi Nile!]

Orgo + Jen = stress, not a lot of time to write, and a need to let off some steam. I really hate orgo. I am so scared right now, I have a test on wednesday and I know that I am not prepared for it. I haven't even finished the homework yet, because I really need to ask some questions about it, and I'm scared to ask the teacher because I'm stupid like that, and I don't know anyone else in class except Eileen who is ten times smarter than me. (How's that for a run-on?) I should have followed up on that Cornerstone thing, which is apparently the new tutoring system at WU...maybe I'll be able to get a 'mentor' before Wednesday night.

I hate that orgo is sucking up all my time like some educational vacuum. I'm already two weeks behind on my tv shows because of it, which I know is a stupid thing to be worried about, but I like my vices, thankyouverymuch. I didn't finish a book in three weeks because of it. (And re: the book...no one had checked it out in A YEAR before I requested it...and of course, the time I don't finish the book in time, someone else requested it. Just one person. So when they've finished, I'll get it back, but for heaven's sake. Irony. My life. I shouldn't be suprised.) I'm not making up an outline for NaNoWriMo because of it. I will be disappointed if I don't 'win' NaNo (aka write the required 50,000 words) because of it, but I have to keep telling myself to be realistic and remember that I will have at least one test during the month. I didn't get to spend time with Leo, who moved out this weekend, because of it. Hi Leo! I hope you like Champaign...I'll miss you.

Yeah, so I shall have a new roomie at the end of the month, Olga, who is from Colombia (the country in South America, not the city in the middle of Missouri) and works at SLU. Which means that I'll be alone in the apartment for two weeks...sigh. It'll be quiet here. It was weird, Leo stopped by today to pick up her car and leave the keys. How final. If her room's door is open, footsteps echo from the kitchen. It's a bit spooky. I don't think I'm meant to live alone, though it seems I'm going to be that way for some time. Roommate or guy wise. Ugh.

On one hand I can't wait for next month when I can start writing for NaNo but on the other it freaks me out because I know I'm heading for heartache, if only because I won't be able to write when I know I should be doing homework. Mom told me last night she wished I would write more. I try, but there's always something else I should be doing. But it makes me happy, which is probably why I actually sat down and tried to recreate this entry. I just got online to see if Luigi had sent me the template for tomorrow's ELISA (which I forgot to make up, as far as I could, last week) so I wouldn't have to rush quite so much tomorrow morning, but here I am, writing the mother of all entries...I really hate it when he gets so fired up that we must get assays run as soon as possible, even if it's on a day when I have class...I always feel so stressed out. Even if the assay has long incubation times...I'll get so engrossed in doing something else that when the alarm goes off to start the next step I'm startled and have trouble pulling my mind back to science. Hopefully tomorrow whatever I'm engrossed in will be organic chemistry and not the new layout for ATTS that I have planned. Bad Jen did the art on Thursday and a lot of the coding on Friday and will have to wait to do anything more until Thursday next, when this damn orgo test is over. Pray for me, will you? I'm freaked out about it, especially when the last test was borderline ok. Mom wants me to get A's. She's so confident in me, and I know I will let her down. I don't want to, but if I keep typing this entry I know I will. So I will bid you adieu and work for another half hour and wake up late, as usual, and try to hurry to work so I won't be late for class. Good Lord, help me out here.

  Chasing Furies: Thicker; Skillet: Locked in a Cage; Nichole Nordeman: Wide Eyed

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 12:21 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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MT-Blacklist -> Adding Spammers Based On Email Address
So this Bob dude likes spamming. Every day it's a different email address and IP number. Blacklist keeps some of them out once you've banned a certain url, but NOW I HAVE THE POWER! Mwahaha. I can block regex email! Ha. Thank you Jay Allen.

Silly Cardinals, losing last night. Hope they win the next two games. Because while they're already in the playoffs it would be a shame to let themselves lose going into it!

Another long day ahead, must search for a serum sample then jump right into an ELISA. Then class. I actually brought my orgo text to work today. During those lovely long-ass incubation periods theoretically I could get the reading done for tonight and possibly even do some homework! Yeah.

Smallville and Lost (with Dominic Monaghan from LotR) as well as the latest entry from CSI (CSI:NY) premiere tonight. How exciting! I need a TiVo.

I'm not really that mad at spam or class...just annoying to have to do so much to make them bearable. Yeah. Later, peeps.

  Kelly Clarkson: Breakaway

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 9:37 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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oh my goodness oh my goodness. I know I'm really behind in this, but I just watched the series finale of Angel and HOW COULD THEY END IT THAT WAY!?!?!?! I mean, it was good and nice to see how some loose ends got tied up, and some characters came back for one last bit, but *lip tremble* WHYYYYY??? sniff. I really liked what they did with it this last season, it was a new direction for the show and of course the wB closed it down. Stupid wB. Someone once pointed out that if I hate what the wB does so much I should boycott them (I think this was after they cancelled Tarzan after only half a season). But they still had Angel and Smallville (which I also finally watched the season finale), and I still really like those types of shows. Sigh. Show what people want to watch, not what makes money. Yeah right. Like that's going to happen. Unfortunately for Smallville's finale I was a little spoiled on things that happened in the end which I wish I hadn't been, but we'll see if that's really the way things turned out.

I miss Buffy and Angel. And Roswell, of course. One of these days I'm actually going to get the first season of Buffy so I can see slayer/vampire romance again, haha. And one of these days I'll get to watch the eps from the fifth/sixth/seventh season that I never did get to watch. And I'll find out what happened in that mondo wierd second/third season of Angel when I totally missed most of the season. One of these days. When I can spare an extra $60 for each set. Yeah. Sorry for the fangirly-ness of the post...just had to get that out. Farewell Angel. We shall miss thee.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 11:50 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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Must remember to put a category tag somewhere so y'all can see how this also belongs under "rants" like the previous entry does.

So I had to do half an elisa today. First we had to wait for the antibody to come in, since the one provided in the kit had leaked and there wasn't even enough for half the plate. Then I had to wait until someone came back so he could give me the last two samples that I needed to run. So I didn't get started until around noon, which usually doesn't matter since the kit only takes about three hours to run. Mostly the actual running went fine, though I nearly forgot to save the extra solution for the time when we run the rest of the plate and I made up all the freaking washing buffer but it's alright cause it stores for a month. But then we get to the end and someone comes in from another lab and asks to use the plate reader. I say sure cause it doesn't matter, as long as I can use it in about 10 minutes I'll be fine. But I guess it messed me up, cause when those 10 (really 7 but who's counting?) minutes were up, I totally forgot to do the last step of the protocol and went straight to the plate reader. I've been doing elisas for the last week and a half straight, not to mention the other fifty or so that I've done in the past, and I've never done that before. So I get to the reader, read the plate, and wonder why the hell the answers are so wrong. So I realize the plate is blue and not yellow like it should be and therein lies the 'oh shit' moment.
I don't really know if the extra few minutes the plate had without the last step really affected it, or the results were just going to be bad anyway because of something else I did. Regardless, it didn't look any better once I went back and did that last step, in fact it almost looked worse. It was the second time running a few of these samples and most of them have been thawed until kingdom come already, so I'm sure they're losing somewhat of their usefulness. But still. The standard curve was all shot to hell before I messed it up, I think. So in this case it's good that we still have half a plate. We would have used it for something else because elisa kits aren't cheap, but we'll just have to get another one, which hurts. Some of them run upwards of $500. Argh. Thank goodness it doesn't come out of my paycheck. And Luigi was really sporting about it. Thanks to the italian. I feel awful that he can't get his results because I screwed up.
This is sort of going to ruin my weekend because now I'll ruminate on it all the weekend and wonder what I did wrong and pray to God that I get it right on Tuesday (thank GOD there's a paid holiday on monday!) because I don't think he'll be so sporting a third time. It doesn't feel like the weekend anymore.

But Part Seventeen of the Shoebox Project makes it all worth it. And I need to remember to head to the library tomorrow so I can pick up the next Elizabeth Haydon book, Elegy for a Lost Star.

  Our Lady Peace: Innocent

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 5:06 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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Well, Wednesday was my first day back in school. Organic Chemistry. I am insane. It went well enough I suppose...we just did review of general chemistry stuff like Lewis structures and resonance, major and minor species, etc etc, which is good since I haven't had any chemistry in, oh, five years. Why do I want to go to med school? Haven't the foggiest.
So the teacher looks at the roster and says, "I see a fair number of you are full-time students in the day school. So I don't know why you're taking the night-school version. Hopefully not because you thought it would be easier. I don't think it is." Bah. I'm going to die. Well, perhaps not die, but failing spectacularly isn't out of the picture yet. Especially since we won't actually have to turn in homework...it's just problem sets out of the book, and we have a solutions manual--

and how could I forget! The textbook and solutions manual (which are sold separately, of course) for this ONE class cost $200 (nearly exactly). I didn't even buy the molecular modelling kit (also sold separately). Thank goodness I get a staff discount, but still. $200. Why?!?!?!? How can the books possibly be worth that much? Ugh. One class. At least I don't have to pay the $1000-odd tuition. Stupid classes costing money. And damn the fact that the teacher neglected to let anyone at the bookstore know that we'll use the same books as the day-school class, so they didn't set aside any used books for us. Not that it would have helped all that much, but still. Ugh.

--so most of the time I'll probably start doing a problem, get confused, look it up in the solutions manual, and promptly lose any good that actually working the problem would do me. Frick. Bloody Hell. Anyone out there wanna give me tips? Please do. Mom wants me to get an A in the class. The teacher informed us that her average is about a C+. Great. She grades on a curve but I can just guess where I'll be on that bell...right smack dab in the middle. Stupid orgo. Why is it a requirement for med school? No one I've talked to says they use it. Shoot, I've been working for two years and haven't used nearly any chemistry that isn't basic math anyway. Ugh. Maybe I can draw some solace from drawing. Line angle structures, that is. Er. Probably not then.

Sorry about that rant. I could also tell you how my laptop monitor is flickering and that I really need a new one (esp so we can get dsl at the apartment) but that I still have to pay my cousin for the sewing machine and I'm trying to save something, anything...I can't believe with the job that I still have about the same amount in the bank as I did last year. Wanna give me a raise? Shoot. Someone out there who's actually making money with web design, please tell me how you do it and let me in on the secret. And maybe someday I'll finish the latest ficlet I started, about King Arthur reincarnated. An unoriginal idea if there ever was one, but hey, at least I'm writing. Let's see how long it takes to get to six chapters for that. Six or seven seems to be the magic number of chapters that I get stuck on. Both Moonstone and Decadence are hovering right around there (though of course Moonstone's chapters are quite a bit longer than Decadence) and back when I was writing (Human) Development I got through the first seven chapters pretty easily and they got up on CD, and then there was the lull while I figured out what the heck happened on Antar. At least it got finished. One of these days I'm gonna make a Roswell skin and a Moonstone skin and a Decadence skin so I can use the fictionary page as the actual story site. Someday.

Tired of the ranting and rambling yet? You're not? Too bad. That's all I got.

  We Are, Ana (Spider-man 2 soundtrack)

file under: education , rants Posted by Jen at 1:51 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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Subtle reminder: it's my birthday tomorrow

So yesterday I was at work until 8 pm. Now normally if I stay that late it's by choice, since the internet here is infinitely faster and more reliable than the dialup at home (which I randomly feel bad about, since my parents are actually paying for it) and I'm working on a layout or other some such time-waster. But not last night. No, it was the Great Freezer Debacle.

So there's all this construction going on in the department...some new lab is moving into the labs just recently vacated by the Core Lab and they're demolishing all sorts of things. A fine layer of dust, etc is all over the stuff in my 'office.' And every so often there'll be random clangs and booms as someone drops a large piece of ceiling tile or slams a door. Erg.

Anyway, in the course of this demolishing, it transpired that the room we keep the human samples freezer in was set to be taken apart, therefore the freezer must move. But not before the changed the core of the lock to the room, and almost wouldn't give us (the lab) the key, since it was the main constructin core lock. But we were like, hello, that's a freezer we always have to use, and we can't move the freezer until you put tile back down on the floor of the room it's going into, so yeah. Key.

Anyway, once they finally got the tile down it was time to move the freezer. It took a good five people...it's a heavy-ass -80 deg C freezer that we store serum and plasma and -gasp- urine samples in. Lots of fun. Yes, urine can be good but in these quantities...Erg.

So it's got a key that turns it on and off, so we turned it off to unplug the freezer from the wall...and we left the key in the lock. This is a huge mistake in hindsight but no one was thinking of the key (which was always kept in the lock anyway) when we had to try to squeeze it through the doorway. So, I bet you can guess what happened to the key...

yep, it broke off in the lock. In the OFF POSITION! AGGGGH! We had to keep moving the freezer though, since it was in the middle of the hallway once we had shoved it through the doorway. Once we got it down the hall (no mean feat I assure you) we looked at the lock to see if we could get it out, but only succeeded in pushing it in further. Did I mention how this happened right around 5 o'clock? So no one was answering their phones when we tried to call facilities maintenance or the company that fixes the freezers. Finally we got ahold of someone who could come in, but they were out in St. Peters and there was a mother of a storm going on outside, so we had to wait quite a while for him to get there. THEN...

we realized there had been a miscommunication and the repair guy thought we just needed to get into a ROOM that the freezer was locked in and not the freezer itself, and that he couldn't get to the key in the lock because there are no screws on the front panel. Which is good if your freezer is prone to being randomly turned off and on, I guess, but it means that the locksmith (who we just ended up calling and should have probably called from the first) will have to go from the back of the freezer and literally push the leftover key out of the lock. Ugh.

But the real fun part came when we had to move all the stuff out of the non-working freezer into another one in the room. Luckily there was another lab that had a bit of room in their freezer so we were able to move our stuff into that one. We almost had an entire extra freezer to ourselves but it hadn't been turned on until we found out about this mess and obviously took a while to cool to -80. It had only gone to -15 when I left a few hours later. So once we filled the other lab's freezer with the human serum and plasma samples, we still had all these bags of tubes of urine. Egad. You have not had fun until you've had to move urine popsicles. Those samples ended up spread out among three freezers, two of which someone else let us use. Damn -80 is cold. Cold metal burns, man.

Last night when I left the borrowed freezer kept alarming because we'd kept it open so long...it was having trouble cooling back down. It alarmed three times before I left, and the last time I just stood there in the dark with my backpack on, ready to leave but hating leaving the freezer since it was now imperative that it cooled down, since it didn't have just our stuff in it. I mean, it's not like losing our stuff would have been acceptable, but it would have only been our stuff, and we wouldn't be responsible for ruining anything else.

So I finally left after I silenced the alarm for the third time and just prayed that it would get back down to -80 and all would be well. I stressed about it all night though...which is probably why I stayed up so long working on my portrait of Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter. Took my mind off things.

Today I got in and the empty freezer had made it to -80, so when I had to find a serum sample it just made sense to move everything over there. Then at least the other lab had their space back and we had all our stuff in one place. It'll need to be reorganized, but hopefully the locksmith will come by today and work his magic and we can move the urine a THIRD time back into our own freezer. Sheesh. See why it was a debacle?

I still managed to get home to see the finals of the womens 100 and 400 hurdles (yay USA for the 100 HH, and Greece for the 400 IM) and the womens 200. My races! Yahoo! And I started the aforementioned HP portrait. We'll see if it gets finished before tomorrow; if so I'll enter it into the Hogwarts Challenge Fanart contest. If not I'll just keep working on it for my own pleasure...I've wanted to do an HP pic for a while and this sort of gave me impetus.

No softball game tonight. Too much rain lately. How ironic. Our rain-out make up game gets rained out. Gosh it's hot outside. Hot and humid because of all the rain. Ugh. yay for typical StL august weather. *sarcasm* Softball just seems to keep going and going...not that I'm sad, it's just like, it was supposed to be done two weeks ago but now it's even going past Orgo. Yikes. I won't even start with that. Can't think about it or I'll freak out.

Wow, that was a lot. Guess I should get to work on that CRP elisa now.

  Switchfoot, Gone (The Beautiful Letdown), John Mayer, Split Screen Sadness

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 1:15 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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for some reason the mt software isn't rebuilding the page, so this is just a test to see if the thing is getting written at all.

today was busy and sucky and I was tired and it's after 3 pm and I haven't had lunch yet. working on that soon. I just love it when I have TWO things that no one told me about just sort of plopped in my lap. ahhh, the beauty of a research job.

and I missed leo at the med school, boo.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 3:16 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

vote for ATTS: ER | Wishlist: {Amazon} |

So the big news today is that John Kerry chose John Edwards for his running mate. Remember when I said that would be a good idea? I think it's a good choice. And obviously I know who I'm voting for come November. Now the Missouri congressional seat...that's a conundrum.

And here's another shoutout to the gotta-love-st-louis-weather...it's been crazy weather the last few days. Alternately hot and torrentially rainy, what a pain to get ready in the morning! And last night it was pretty horrible: in the middle of watching True Lies with the 'rents the power went out. When we called Ameren UE about an hour after the power was out the message said 93,000 people were without power...gaaah. And for those of you keeping watch on papershew.com, my mom's got another show this weekend, the one at St. Mark's, which is always a fun show...but the week leading up to a show, any show, is always horrendously busy for her, and this week even more so because she just got done with the daylily show and has to replenish her stock. So you can see how a power outage is not a good thing to happen this week. It was supposed to come on sometime in the night, but as of around 11 am it still wasn't on, and now they're saying not until 9 tonight! Agggh. Poor Mommy. Thank goodness the power didn't go out at the apartment, but it sure was weird driving down Lindell with no streetlights. All those million-dollar homes along there had no electricity...feel almost really bad for them. Slightly less because of that stupid rich daylily guy who wanted to come by my parents' at 6 am on July 4th. Gaah!

So yay Kerry!Edwards and booo power outage and random rich people who think everyone is up at insane hours on weekends/holidays.

Random question: why does no one visit the aspire exchange? I made it all pretty and then no one came. meh.

  Dashboard Confessional: Vindicated (Spider-man 2 sdtk)

file under: politics , rants Posted by Jen at 2:41 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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I'm going to complain a little here about having to trek from the Yalem building up to the 9th floor of the CSRB so I can spin something for six minutes. But it's ok, it gives me exercise...and it's ALL FOR THE GOOD OF SCIENCE! I have to keep reminding myself of that. Ah, the lovely grunt work that goes along with the glory...alas, that's what the tech (read: me) is for...

and how unfortunate that it's raining for WILD. I'm just not in the mood for getting wet however much free pizza they give out. And Live is playing...never really been that huge a fan, except for the one song that the movie The Beach used in their ads...eh.

I want posters for my room! I want the elven and Rohan banners from lotrfanclub.com and I want the ned kelly poster and I want some OB posters...I can't believe I've been in the apartment for...*counts* nearly seven months and I haven't put nearly enough posters up...I want the Troy 'For Love' poster... *whine* Stupid IRS. damn you for taking my money. Ah well.

I need to write more. At least those silly 4- and 6-minute spins gave me some time to think. The notebook is getting fuller...I'll need a new one soon. The cover's almost falling off this one.

Happy weekend! Wahoo!

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 5:51 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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Well, I just got done with the salad part of my lunch...sheesh. A busy day. I love it when random things just come up...I did almost everything I do normally all this morning. Whee. *sarcasm*

And now the internet is being selective and not always working. Weird.

And another project got sprung on me today for tomorrow...maybe the subjects will cancel. Er. Is that bad that I'm hoping for less work? well, not really, see...I had something I was going to do, but now I can't because of this other thing...blah.

Good thing: I'll admit it though it makes me sound like a dork...I get to see Riverdance with my aunt next week. Cool! I don't care what people say, Irish dancing is pretty neat.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 4:42 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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...you come to work all prepared to work your butt off on something boring yet important *just keep thinking, you'll get a paper out of this* but then something comes up so you have to switch gears and do something else equally important AND equally boring? Yeah.

John Mayer presale tix on sale tomorrow....finally a fan club that actually makes sense to join. Yes, I am now a card-carrying member of the JM club...or will be whenever they send my membership kit.

BUT! Argh. Apparently I owe upwards of a thousand bucks in taxes from 2002 (!) because the job I had out of college didn't report my income as part of the rest of the income that I made from WU. Bleagh. Lovely. A year of interest on top of what I owe. Stupid IRS, silly payroll. And I was all ready to buy a new laptop. Hah. And I love the 'you can pay on an installment plan....but we're gonna charge you interest while you do it.' Sigh.

One of these days I'm gonna get this blog a new layout and switch it to php. I've also got to get my Roswell site back up.

Cross your fingers that we might go to Orlando next month That's my happy thought for the day.

Please comment. It makes me feel lonely when no one's out there...

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 10:10 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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The WB has a disturbing trend of cancelling shows that I like, or hoisting them off onto different networks, vis-a-vis Roswell and Buffy respectively. While Angel and Smallville have faced this problem and survived, the current show on the cutting block is Tarzan, which is arguably my favorite new show of the season. Now, the slightly weird folks at the WB decided to put it on Sunday nights across from Alias. I tape Alias and watch Tarzan because we only get ABC when the signal runs through the vcr...because I like both shows. Of course, because of its bad placement and typical new-show uncertainty, Tarzan is in danger of being cancelled...they're going to air the November episodes and, depending on ratings, may cancel the half-season run before the show has had a chance. So go vote for Tarzan, even if you don't particularly care about it, and make me happy. Visit a link through the button above to learn more about how you can help save the show. The WB has to stop making good shows and then not giving them a chance.

btw, Alias was a little creepy last night. But still good...however due to wacky football scheduling my tv viewing was messed up last night so I ended up watching Alias at 11 pm. So I didn't get to watch Tarzan...but rest assured I will It would be so nice if a show I really liked didn't have this problem. I'll keep my fingers crossed.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 10:51 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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Fall begins this afternoon at 5:45 pm. It's such a pretty day. Too bad I'll be inside working on an extremely long ELISA all day. I'll probably have to stay late again. Ah well.

Semi-peevish thing of the moment: they installed a gate on the parking lot that I park in at work. It took them quite a long time and then for at least two weeks (probably longer, I can't remember the exact date they went in) the gates were up and you didn't have to swipe your id to get into the lot. Yesterday they had them down and a transportation guy was watching to make sure people's ids worked to open the gate. Mine worked just fine, but it's a PAIN to have to stop and swipe and wait for the gate. It backed up traffic both ways. And of course you have to swipe to get out as well. Apparently having permits displayed in your car wasn't enough to discourage free parkers, so they needed the gates...but it's a bad idea, imo. And today they were open. Weird. Maybe they got too many complaints. Wouldn't that be nice.

I'm already hungry. Geez. Haven't been here a half hour yet. And the day stretches long before me...

hopefully today we'll hear about the apartment and it will be good news. Keep your fingers crossed. And here's mention about Leona who loves to see the apartment noted in the blog luff you!

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 9:40 AM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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so last weekend was Memorial Day weekend, right? Nice long weekend, yeah? Well. I was busy working on my costume muslin on friday and saturday nights, so I didn't turn on the computer until late late saturday night (it was probably sunday by that time) and what do I see instead of the nice "Welcome to Mac OS" screen? A little floppy disc with a flashing question mark. Self, I says, this is not a good sign. So I left it until morning, cause it was late, and lo and behold the same thing shows up the next day. And the next. So I was without a computer (not to mention the internet) for the entire weekend! Aaaahhhhh! Being the holiday, there was no one we could call...the upside was that I finished the muslin and now have laid out all the pattern pieces. All that's left is to cut *gasp* the fabric and sew it together...like that's going to be easy or something *g* I've got to find some fabric for the trousers as well. And then it's onto the props, which could be fun or scary. I've got some metal that I can cut into knife shapes, but then how would I get it out to Cali? Would they let me mail it, do you think? Don't I wish I lived in Cali. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it, I suppose. Gotta make the quiver and such, and I'll try to make a few arrows, and we've gotta make the elven brooch. Just so you know, "we" refers to my mother and I, as she'll probably make the pin and maybe the knife handles.

So, good weekend stuff was the pattern getting done. Bad bad bad computer! Sigh. Hopefully we either a) get it fixed soon or b) get a new comp, which is not likely to happen as we're buying a new car. Too bad we're not rich. Soon, grasshopper...

so if you don't see me online, that's why. also why your emails might have bounced, lol.

file under: rants Posted by Jen at 2:13 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

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It's been raining oh so much. And hail! Hail in May! Sigh. I'm surprised all the flowers in our garden aren't just so many petals on the patio. Apparently irises love lots of rain, they've exploded into these huge purple and white and yellow blooms all over. Pretty, but if nigh-monsoon weather is what's needed to get them like this, I'll pass...

I've been spring cleaning. My mom and I went to an antiques shop called the White Rabbit. We didn't know where it was, and we'd watched the Matrix the night before so my mom said, Neo, can you find the white rabbit? lol. The funny thing was, we were driving and on the lookout for the store, but we didn't see it. Finally my mom pulled into a parking lot, saying, 'I don't see it.' and I said, 'but it's right there! I thought that's why you turned into this lot!' She honestly hadn't seen the sign but turned into the right lot anyway. Follow the white rabbit indeed. I would adore seeing the Matrix on opening night...

..even though it probably won't happen, given that it's my first week of a new job. Hopefully I can do this one better and I won't be expected to formulate my own experiements for some time yet. I just don't feel like I know enough. One day, grasshopper...Dr Fontana seems pretty nice, pray that he doesn't get fed up with slow-at-math me. He said I look smart. lol. At least I can pull that off. Wouldn't you know the day after I accepted the job at the lab this guy from Kforce (who I'd talked to somewhere around a month ago and decided what he'd called me about needed more experience than I had) calls again, sort of out of the blue, and tells me he'd found something in the tissue engineering industry. Sigh. I know it's still what I want to work in, someday, but not now, I suppose.

and last but not least:

Rescue me, mellon (hint: look at the 'who's lost' link) Thanks

file under: rants , working Posted by Jen at 10:26 PM | Permalink MTIfCommentsActive>|

vote for ATTS: ER | Wishlist: {Amazon} |