amatyultare

The Cambiata are awesome. Just saying.

It's fascinating to watch my boss get angry. He gets more and more energetic, but it continues to be an upbeat sort of energy, even when he's really upset. Very weird. (No, he wasn't angry at me, thank goodness.)

Three random links I am totally stealing from cleolinda:

THE AWESOME: . It's funny because it's so true.

THE NOT-SO-AWESOME: In fact, put me down as one of those whose reaction is something along the lines of NOOOOOOO! or perhaps WHYYYYYYYYY? Keanu Reeves set to play Spike Spiegel in a live action Cowboy Bebop movie. DAMMIT, FOX. THIS IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. I don't necessarily dislike Keanu - or at least, not that much - but he is not at all a good choice for Spike. *sigh*

THE CRAZY-YET-AWESOME: The worst comic book, and best worst comic book line, ever. NOT SAFE FOR WORK, SCHOOL, OR SENSITIVE OR INNOCENT PEOPLE. You've been warned.

Hello, all - sorry for my long silence here in LJ land. And Merry Christmas/happy holidays to you all!

Things have been, not crazy, but somewhat busy here in P-town. A few of the highlights:

Christmas gifts OMG I went sort of nuts trying to figure out Christmas gifts for everyone. I STILL haven't purchased all of my Christmas gifts - how lame is that? And while I have my gift for my sister, I haven't mailed it to her. Meh. But Mom and Eric seemed to like what I got them! So that was a plus. Also, speaking of presents, I got some lovely things including (this was this year's Big Exciting Present) a beautiful opal ring. Opal is my birthstone and I've wanted an opal ring for YEARS, so I was pretty thrilled. I have it on right now, actually - so pretty!

Car issues As you guys may or may not recall, my own car died completely right around the time I left hell on earth, aka Microdyne. So when I came down to Portland, I brought my sister's car (convenient, since she's in AK for the year). Which was fine, until it started snowing. Old-ish car + rear wheel drive (!) + not-great tires to begin with + Portland doesn't plow very well + living on a hill = serious driving difficulties. There was one day where I literally couldn't get to work because I COULD NOT get the car up the hill. Eventually I'm going to need to buy a car of my own anyway, but I need to at least get money together for a down payment. Hence:

Portland bus adventures It took me a while to figure out the Portland bus schedule/routes, but I decided to try it out this morning and see if I could use it to get into work with a minimum of fuss. The nearest bus stop to my house is actually only a few blocks away - I left the house super early this morning to make sure I got there on time, and ended up arriving half an hour early, so I walked up Congress St. to the nearest Dunkin Donuts for coffee and a breakfast sandwich before coming back to get on the bus. And actually? It was really convenient. Yes, it takes longer than just driving because it's a more circuitous route, but I can sip my coffee and listen to music and even read. And the bus stops just down the road from my office. So it looks like I'm good to go with the bus for as long as necessary.

Work today Yes, as indicated above by me taking the bus in today, I do have to work today. I'm pretty much the only person in the office besides Roger who is in our 'Member Services' department (essentially customer service). The whole reason why I decided to try the bus today was because my boss said I could come in late, so I figured if there were any problems with the bus that made me late I was safe. But there weren't any problems, so I was here by 7:40 (heh). I was in the office on Christmas Eve too, and it was so slow that I finished pretty much my entire to-do list. That means today, since I've finished my few end of the week housekeeping things, I have very little to do. I don't mind, but it's weird for the office to be so quiet.

I actually have a conference call in a couple of minutes, so I'll stop here. My next post will probably be the inevitable end-of-the-year memes.

So I didn't expect that I'd be able to vote today. I hadn't switched my registration/residence to Portland, and I had forgotten to request an absentee ballot.

But I didn't remember one thing, which my coworkers helpfully reminded me of today. Maine's standards for voting registration are ridiculously lax.

After work today, I went to the polling place nearest to my house. I told them I needed to fill out a new registration card to update my address, and showed them my Maine driver's license and an 'electronic pay stub' from work. Now, no offense to my company, but the electronic pay stub is very much less than official-looking. I could probably make something that looks like it in about fifteen minutes in Photoshop, and I'm not even good at Photoshop. But it had my name and a Portland address, and that's all that mattered. They checked it, had me fill out a new card, and gave me a ballot. ^_^

This meant that I also got to vote on Portland town issues, except I don't know anything about Portland town issues. So I guessed randomly. Yay democracy? I'm such a bad citizen. *sigh*

And now, I return to my usual blatherings about NaNoWriMo.

Word count as of today: 14,037. Woo-hoo! My goal for tonight was actually to reach 15,000 but I was purposefully aiming high so I'm reasonably pleased.

The plot of my story, and keep in mind that I'm using 'plot' in its very loosest sense....this is something deliriumdriver asked about. I choose 'mainstream fiction' as my genre as it's basically about wacky college hijinks, but with some random urban fantasy elements involved as well.

Tessa is my heroine, a freshman education major (with a possible minor in Poli Sci) going to school in a mythical liberal arts university in southern Maine. Her roommate is Brianna, an English major, aspiring writer, and huge bookworm. After a mutual all-nighter in the middle of their first semester, Tessa and Brianna are trying to get to sleep when Brianna confesses something:

She's clairvoyant. And an orc.

Tessa is still trying to deal with that particular revelation when second semester classes start and Brianna declares that their mild-mannered Business Culture professor (an abstract math professor who basically spends every class shouting combinations of business buzzwords in an excited fashion) is a twisted genius with an Evil Plot (which they, of course, need to thwart). Unfortunately, she doesn't know what that Evil Plot might be....

And now, to bed.

This ended up being a pretty active weekend. Not entirely restful, but hey, I can't have everything.

Friday night I drove up to the DFC to visit Mom and Eric. I attempted to sleep on my waterbed, but a waterbed's internal heater really needs to be on for a few days before the bed is comfortable; otherwise the cool water just leeches body heat right out of you. I eventually gave up and slept on the sofa.

Saturday I neatened up my room because I had left it in a complete mess, helped Mom with a few chores, ate some delicious blueberry pancakes, and reread Parliament of Whores. (P.J. O'Rourke <3) I packed up a few more things to bring back (like my manga and my winter coat) and headed back to P-town Saturday night.

Today I slept late and had the most bizarre dreams (as I often do when I sleep late). I wonder if it's odd that my dreams almost never are 'stationary' i.e. taking place in one location. They almost always involve running/driving/flying/etc. from place to place constantly. I think that's part of why I feel tired when I wake up after a long dream. ^_^

I went over to Westbrook for the NaNo kickoff party - good times. In between activites, I made myself a book cover (now that I have a title and all). It's less than amazing and very monochromatic (a picture of a whiteboard, on an off-white background, with black writing on it...yeah), but I'm reasonably satisfied with it.

The late afternoon/evening was devoted to a small shopping spree (mostly for cleaning supplies and a few groceries) and reorganizing my room. I brought back my box of posters and wallscrolls - besides making it feel more homey, I figured that putting them up would cause sound to be absorbed and take away some of that empty-room echoiness. The funny thing is that I now am back to having a ridiculously geeky room covered in anime wallscrolls (plus my Labyrinth poster, which as per tradition is on the wall directly facing the door - the first thing you see when you walk in is David Bowie staring at you). I cleaned the bathroom, did my laundry, and called it good for the evening.

Now I really need to get to sleep - my goal is to NOT have to drag myself out of bed every morning while internally cursing my alarm. We'll see.

If I get a good running start, I can write 450 words of fiction in 10 minutes. Yay! Does this mean NaNoWriMo is not a totally crazy idea for me? (No, actually, it is...)

This weekend was less than busy, but involved me actually going places and being sociable, which is a good step. On Saturday evening was the first staff meeting for PortConMaine 2009. Excitement and thrills! It was the first time I had seen the new building that Weekend Anime is in - I really like it! It's basically a residential house split into a few sections; besides WA there's a computer repair store, I believe? The details aren't important; it's a great space.

The meeting wasn't huge - the first meeting of the year never is, I think - but there were many familiar faces and we all started getting psyched for 2009. We're back at the Wyndham! With Bob! (Bob is the hotel guy who was 'in charge of' PCM the previous years we were there. Bob is basically the God of PCM. He is AMAZING). We are also going to have a GIANT TENT (in which staffers will sleep).

I also volunteered to be the sponsorship liaison for '09. Basically I will send out tons of emails and letters and make many phone calls asking various businesses to send us free stuff.

Today was also about the weekly southern Maine pre-NaNo meetup. Once we get into November, it will be an official Write-In and apparently will become super intense; right now we just hang out in Panera Bread with our laptops and surf the NaNo forums and chat about plot or character ideas and event ideas for November. (Also, we eat delicious food; I am semi-addicted to Panera Bread right now.) We also do outlining and random prep stuff; I did a few ten-minute sprints, which is how I came up with the word score above.

Next week is the last weekend before NaNo starts so we'll be having our Kick-Off party...fun times.

Is anyone else on my F-list doing NaNo? We could be writing buddies and have word wars...anyone?

(Also, randomly, I truly love the NaNo forums. Where else can you find threads like "Let's say you were going to hide a body" or "I am really starting to detest my main character"?)

(Also, and totally unrelated to everything else in this post, ZOMG I'm 23! And I'm actually living on my own with a real job and everything...it's almost like I'm an adult? Nah, couldn't be...)