I love this delightfully cheesy poster outside a Halloween costume shop near where I work. The only one I can't identify is the second from the right. Wasp? Not - surely not Wolverine??

My foster kitty is doing pretty well. I got his teeth cleaned last week and he seems to have settled down afterwards. Since last weekend he's been getting along with the other cats, until this morning when he had a fight with Dusty. So he's spending the day shut up in the bedroom again, and I hope when I get home they're going to bury the hatchet. (Hopefully not in each other.)

Work is boring. And tedious. But I'm getting that paycheck so can't complain too hard.

I've become obsessed with modding The Sims 3. For weeks I've been trying to figure out how to modify the morphs used to make the sims fat, fit, thin, and pregnant. (Specifically to add pregnant morphs where they don't exist in the base game.) Finally, success! Took me all three days off last weekend, but I figured out the format of the morph files and wrote a program to create new ones. Now more work to package up stuff for other people to download.

The niece of one of my co-workers was murdered a couple of weeks ago, by her mother's stalker ex-boyfriend. (Anyone in the NY/NJ area may have seen this in the news.) He strangled her and then set fire to her room to cover it up, and THEN had the colossal balls to show up later and comfort the distraught mother. I kind of hope hell really exists so people like him can rot there for eternity.

Just when life seems dull and discouraging... shirley_chong pointed me at this. Thanks so much, Shirley, you made my day! All Dan Southworth fans should enjoy this, especially the - er - end.



http://blog.reubenlangdon.com/2009/08/time-warner-lag-commercial/

Atlantic City was very nice, very enjoyable. Well, except for the part where we stood on line for over an hour. Seems the Trump Taj Mahal makes you get a membership card now in order to cash in the gambling money voucher they give you, obviously with the sole purpose of getting your contact information. (The bus we took costs $37, and we get a $30 coupon for gambling money and a $5 coupon for lunch.) Except for that we had a good time, lost a little money, and C and I went to the new carnival pier and rode the Ferris wheel.

Riding through downtown Atlantic City was amazing - when I first went, probably 20 years ago, the city was a horrible slum surrounding the glittery casinos. A disturbing contrast. Now the downtown is mostly new and very nice, with a bunch of factory outlet stores and some parks and stuff. There's still some blocks here and there with burned-out buildings and XXX NUDE LIVE GIRLS, but not a whole lot.

The new diabetic cat I'm fostering arrived yesterday. His name is Salem, and he's quite friendly and very laid back considering he's been pitched into a new home and around other cats for the first time. Blood-testing and injecting him is going reasonably well - where Cyclone purred through the whole process, Salem complains but puts up with it. It'll probably get easier for both of us as we get to know each other.

Looks like I'm getting another diabetic cat - I've agreed to foster a cat whose owner can't keep him where they are now. The agreement is that she'll take him back when she has a job (she just got out of college) and gets her own place.

So on my last day of freedom from additional kitty responsibility I'm going to Atlantic City with friends. Wish me a jackpot.

I have a perverse liking for "Where the Boys Are", a classic of the fifies moral-lesson genre. And I love all the Frankie and Annette beach movies for sheer mindless fun.

After seeing some of the buzz around fandom and having a great fear of being spoiled, I caved and downloaded Torchwood Children of Earth. Having stayed up until after freaking 2:00 am Saturday night watching and then finishing the last two eps on Sunday morning, and after adequate time to think rationally, I can state with authority: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

I thought it was masterful, most of it. Oh, there were the usual plot holes and WTF moments, and it's a little hard to believe the British Home Office would have such astoundingly bad security, and it got (IMO) a little too heavily into the angst-and-tears department, but overall I loved it. Except for...... stuff I won't spoil for. AAAGGGGGG!!!!!

Headline on CNN: "Jackson dies, almost takes Internet with him". Apparently there was so much searching for news and contacting friends and posting of tributes yesterday that Google, Twitter, Wikipedia, and AIM went down for a while, and I know LJ was down also when I first tried to post yesterday.

And I see there were online rumors that Jeff Goldblum had been killed, and Harrison Ford, both untrue, but spread like wildfire.

I guess I shouldn't even be surprised, really, but I'm a little awestruck that the death of a celebrity can impact the Internet like this.

There are many I really like, but I'd have to say the full version of Thriller.

I heard about Farrah Fawcett at lunchtime today. While I was never a fan, she was a big icon of my youth and showed considerable talent in her roles after Charlie's Angels. Sad as her death is, everyone was expecting it.

When I heard about Michael Jackson over the radio in the grocery store, it was a complete shock. I'm surprised at how upset I am. It'll make no sense to people for whom he's always been that creepy pedophile guy, but he was an amazing and charismatic talent. Whatever bad he's done, that's what I'm remembering now.

Just spent the last two+ hours catching up on LJ after neglecting it for something like four days. First of all:



Better late than never, I hope.

Last weekend I went to my 40th high school reunion in Gainesville, Florida. (Yes, I'm THAT old.) It was fun... well, mostly. People were friendly. I even remembered a few of them beyond "Your name is vaguely familiar." (Graduating class of over 700 plus my shyness = I didn't know most of these people.) Spent most of my time with my two best friends from high school, and it was really nice to be with them again. Hadn't seen one of them for 30 years.

( What is it about high school reunions, anyway? )

So. I arrived home last Sunday, and on Monday the shit started to really hit the fan at work regarding massive changes coming up. I haven't said much here, but I've been spending a lot of time on our impending move to another floor in our building, along with a move from our own locally run IT network to a centralized and much more regulated network. Let me just say, WE WILL BE ASSIMILATED. The people in charge of this project appear to be astonished by my whining about whether we'll actually be able to do our work under the new system.

Wednesday was my day off, and I spent two hours on a conference call from home. Argg.

Then, to make things perfect, Wednesday evening I came down with another cold/flu/whatever with fever, runny nose, sneezing, etc. Took Friday off and refuse to even look at my work email until tomorrow.

And I think I'm addicted to Sims 3.

All of which is kind of a long-winded explanation for why I haven't been around much.

To my first friend in fandom,
to one of the first writers in Power Rangers fandom,
and still one of the best writers in Power Rangers fandom,
to a wonderful author,
a force in the fandom,
a great friend,
and a terrific person:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, germankitty!!!!!

I'm toying (rather seriously) with the idea of getting a personal domain and using it for a permanent email address that won't be affected by my ISP or a hosting site going out of business or not providing POP3 service. Since I suffered total brain-freeze trying to decide whether to go with .org or .net or .me or .name (which seems hard to register for some reason), or .us or WHATEVER, I thought I'd ask if anyone out there has done this (I seem to remember someone mentioning it) and if you have any advice or suggestions.

Thanks!

New Hampshire is yay!

California is fail! (Well, for now.)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, starandrea!

Title: A Walk in the Park (You’ll never know how much I wanted to call this “Dog Day Afternoon”.)
Fandom: Power Rangers Time Force
Descriptors: Fluff, slash, Wes/Eric, puppy!
Summary: Eric had decided months ago he would never have another pet. Sometimes life has other ideas.
Rating: PG-ish

( Have a slice of Wes/Eric/puppy birthday fic. )

I rely on my cellphone, but am thinking of switching to either cable phone or a cheaper plan. I have to carry a Blackberry for work now and don't want or need to have TWO cellphones on me, and leaving it at home to use like a regular phone is a waste of money.

I have two one no Dreamwidth invite codes if anyone wants them - just ask.

Both taken!

lilyleia78 tells me she has two unused codes as well. Contact her either directly or through me if you're interested.

My cat Dusty is doing excellently, and had his stitches out yesterday. All is well for now on the kitty front, despite the fact that during his recovery I managed to accidentally drug the wrong cat with painkiller. She was so funny - sat on the fridge staring into space until I lifted her down, and then looked around wildly like "Where am I? Who am I?"

Dick Cheney. Sorry, dude - while you make excellent points about terrorist imprisonment and interrogation and I agree with at least some of what you say, all that self-righteous indignation over the word 'torture' just makes you a colossal hypocrite. Call it 'enhanced interrogation' all you want; we know what it really is.

RPM: I like this season more and more. It's got a subtly more adult perspective and a lot of self-awareness, like Ninja Storm did. LOVED the "Why do we have to scream 'RPM GET IN GEAR' every time we morph?" and "What's with the fiery explosions?" ( Spoilers for Brother's Keeper. )

And I'm writing a Wes/Eric/puppy OTP for starandrea. Life is good.

I've become a sheep branched out to Dreamwidth. Anything I post here will be crossposted on LJ for the foreseeable future. Account name is cmar - nice to get exactly the name I wanted!

This morning has gone from a low to a big high! First, Dusty is the WORST patient ever when it comes to medication. Well, I shouldn't say that - before the operation he would gulp down his treats with a pill hidden inside, no problem. Now his appetite is off and he's probably not feeling so good, so he'll eat only a couple of treats and spit out the pill half the time. I tried pilling him and we had a horrible session Friday morning ending with the pills half disintegrated and sticking to my fingers and Dusty in misery. So I got the same meds in liquid form - he HATES them, foams and drools all over, and fights like I'm trying to kill him: not the best thing after major surgery. After this morning's struggle he hardly ate any breakfast, threw up, and is still growling at me.

After speaking to both regular vet and surgeon, only three meds are really essential and two of them are very tiny pills, so I'm going to do my best. No more major struggles, though, it's too stressful for both of us.

And now the good part - the biopsies are back and THEY ARE ALL BENIGN. No cancer, no chemo, after he heals up he should be fine. What a relief!

THANK YOU so much to everyone who sent good wishes to both of us - I guess they worked!