Recent Entries

Blargh

Former roommate is going to give me an aneurysm, I think. Seriously, I spent five hours cleaning that kitchen. It will take you _fifteen minutes_ to run a sponge along the inside of the fridge and grab these cobwebs I supposedly missed while wiping down the entire stove, fridge outside, floor, baseboards, and windows, along with all the corners and top edges of the room. Christ. I have more important things to do like, oh, I don't know, go to work? Actually unpack my belongings? I was civil in my e-mail back, but I am this close to a scathing response if she e-mails me back.

Thank god she only has my school e-mail address, and not my cell or my new house address.

Moved

Moved, found sketchy mold on stuff from my old place (I am SO GLAD I am out of there), but I am in a shiny new place with internet and a cool landlord and my own private bathroom. I unpacked as much as I could - I still have no furniture, so a bunch of stuff is in boxes still.

The BPAL meet-up last night was lots of fun - we spent three and a half hours going through each other's collections and getting lots of strange looks from other people in the cafe we were at. I had by far the smallest collection, but I still had a few older LEs and discontinued GC blends to share. Managed to trade off most of the stuff I had and didn't like, and acquired a bunch of new imps and a full bottle of Wolf Moon. Everyone else was super-nice, too.

So Many Things, So Little Time

Got my schedule sorted out, no thanks to the Linguistics department - I got lucky and there was finally an opening in the section I wanted. I also signed my lease for the next year, and am moving tomorrow night with Jon's help, which means I will have interwebs again pretty much all the time. I somewhat amazingly apparently will be getting my deposit back. There's also a BPAL meet-up this evening which should be awesome. Work is in chaos as half the department is going back to school, but as I am merely a lowly clerk, this is Somebody Else's Problem. People are coming back in the next few days, and now that everything has finally fallen into place, I'm just excited. Got to play Ally again last night, somewhat unexpectedly - one of the Earthdawn guys didn't show, so it was Shadowrun instead. And now I'm going to go pack more and get some McFood, because some days I just want that sweet, sweet artificial flavor.

Updates

I'm going to be living in East Van this fall, and I've decided that if I get anything, it'll be a car. I still need to get a rough insurance estimate before I make up my mind, though. I'm also hitting a dead-end trying to talk to the Linguistics department about registration in a full tutorial, because there hasn't been anyone in their offices the last two days. So I'm just going to try and e-mail them, and I still need to rope someone into helping me move all my stuff.

I also did go and buy my ticket yesterday, as well as a copy of Judgment (finally!), which I'm listening to right now.

And my touchpad and trackpoint have well and truly died D:

OMG OMG OMG

VNV Nation, Wednesday September 26 at 9pm. Tickets are $20, and I am going to Zulu right now to buy mine. Anybody else interested?

So excited!

Things of a Vehicular Nature

So, as it looks like I may be moving out to East Van, I'm seriously considering a vehicle of some variety. The two major options on the table are buying a car, as I can't legally import my current one, or getting a motorcycle license and buying a motorcycle. As I am a compulsive list maker, here's the break-down for the two options:

	Car	Motorcycle
Upfront Cost	Approximately the same (~$2000). Varies slightly depending on what car/motorcycle I buy, but used prices are comparable
Parking On Campus	$84 for one parkade	$20 for all parkades + special motorcycle spaces
Parking Elsewhere	Pain in the ass (parallel parking)	Slightly less of a PITA
Insurance Costs	? (less for motorcycle, though, but ICBC doesn't give quotes without a vehicle)
MPG ($4/gallon)	20 mpg	40 mpg
Passengers	3-4	1
Stuff Carried	Furniture	A weekend camping
Coolness Factor	This piece of shit is supposed to have style?	Badass

Any input? I know most of the people here are car owners, but I'm open to all opinions.

Also, my touchpad and trackpoint are acting up - neither left-click button works, and the right-click seems to keep pulling in left-click functionality. Cheapo USB mouse is fine though. Weird.

End of Summer

So, I realized last night that summer is almost over - moving in two weeks, and then classes start soon after. I've actually started doing some packing - stuff I'm not going to need in the next two weeks, largely, like costumes and books. Still not entirely sure where I'll be living, but there's a few options on the table. I still actually need to pick a few electives in the next week or two - one for first term at the very least, although I need three total (suggestions, anyone?). Julie, when's move-in for on-campus housing? I think I'm going to have a little welcome-back party the weekend after everyone moves in.

(no subject)

A long shot, but do any of my friends here know anybody looking for housing in Vancouver September first? I'm trying to find a roommate for a rather nice two bed/two bath out in East Van with little luck so far, and I'm not sure I want to turn to Craigslist quite yet.

(no subject)

Apartment hunting is not going amazingly well, but at least it's going. Still waiting to hear back from a few places. We all died in Shadowrun last night, which is what happens when you decide to take on the local Yakuza clan. After much debate and voting, we decided to make a new, slightly more coherent Shadowrun team, focusing on social justice, which hopefully will last a little longer. So far we've got the eco-warrior, the priest, the political activist, and Robin Hood. The last one is me - I'm rewriting Ally as a technomancer/rigger build, which should be...interesting XD; Technomancers are what you get when you cross magic and the internet, basically.

Pride was also very fun, even though public transit is occasionally ass and made me fifteen minutes late to work. I'll post photos later, I took tons. We also went to Granville Island on Monday, which was also fun - I bought overpriced maple sugar candy, and Nandy kept inquiring into getting a copy of the Necronomicon made. Jon also bought a little Celtic cross pendant he says he's going to nail to my door. Why, I have no clue, but it entertains me.

Hooray!

Mp3 player fixed - I managed to stumble across the buttons to get it to boot in safe mode, formatted the harddrive, wiped the OS, and then installed a clean copy of the firmware and retransferred all my music. So I am in business, music-wise.

Just a quick heads-up, though, that I won't be at AE - I didn't ask for it off soon enough and am on for Saturday and Sunday. I may go for Friday to buy shit, say hi to people, reclaim my memory card, and maybe cosplay Leon, but that's about it.

And now I am off to watch the Pride parade downtown before going to work, which should be utterly fabulous.

(no subject)

At Jon's leeching internet at the moment. Dad came and visited for a couple days; we had fun and hung out and walked the Stanley Park seawall - fun, aside from the slight sunburn. He brought a bunch of stuff with him, including caffeinated Mountain Dew, cheap instant ramen, Star Wars books (Should I bring 'em Tuesday, Aaron?) and my 'new' mp3 player. Which has already stopped working. Seriously, jokes about me having gremlins aside, I think using Winamp to transfer songs did something nasty to the firmware - any super-tech savvy people on my flist? I know re-installing the firmware will probably do the trick, but my laptop won't recognize the mp3 is plugged in when it is, and thus refuses to install the firmware. Halp pls D:

Also, have now seen the first half of Cowboy Bebop, which is quite good. I caught bits of the dub on Adult Swim way back when and was kind of 'eh', but watching it in order makes it infinitely better. I'd say more on that later, but with my internet connection (or rather, lack thereof)? Not gonna happen. Maybe when we finish it off.

Housing Woes

Trying to find somewhere to live for September is making me want to kill people. And then possibly take their house. The rental market out here is kind of shit, particularly if you're looking for a one bedroom. And all my friends (and friends of friends, too) are living on-campus or with their parents, and I don't want a repeat of my current roommate situation, so I have no one to share with.

Blargh.

Busy Busy Busy

The lack of internet at home, combined with my roommate, is starting to drive me insane. I am so glad I'm moving in a month, even if I have no clue where to yet. Works is okay - free food and coworker craziness mixed with bitchy customers and one of the more senior people in the department making thinly criticisms about my lack of productivity. Bought the new HP book twelve hours later than half my friends, because the choice was midnight release party versus snuggling with boyfriend, and the latter won. Enjoyed it, don't feel like posting much about it though except most of my predictions came true, and Dumbledore is totally the series' deus ex machina. Watched the first set of the Celebration of Lights fireworks last night, missed some of the effect because we were on the Granville Bridge which was full of cars, but still quite nice. I'm going to try and find a better location for Saturday night. That's about it for now - working lots, spending free time with Jon, dad visiting next week.

Oh, and I did a small flist cut, because it's gotten way too big. You're all wonderful people, I just haven't talked to some of you at all in years, and the connection just isn't there anymore :\

yawn

Six am = a time man was not meant to see. But I'm registered for my core classes, and one of my electives. I need to talk the Religious Studies department into letting me take that class, or webstalk Japanese or something, and then pick one last elective for second term, but I pulled decent times for most of my core courses - nothing before nine-thirty, and at the moment, nothing past three-thirty - which is excellent.

And now, off to work =.=

Gah

Registration is such a pain in the ass. The massive downside of being in Science is that basically every class you take has a tutorial or lab on top of the lecture (which doesn't make the class any more credits). Which means that I'm limited in when I can take electives, because I've got four Bio classes I have to take, plus one Chem and Microbi. And of course Japanese filled up as soon as the first years registered a month ago, and the Religious Studies class I want filled up yesterday. Might be able to talk my way into that one, but I'm thinking Japanese is a no. So much frustration.

In other, unrelated news, I'm contemplating taking up fencing again after, what, five years of not doing it? I probably suck hardcore now. But it's come in in conversation a few times recently, as it turns out that the entire Tuesday night gaming group fences or used to fence. Guess I'll poke around and see what's avalible...

Assorted Tidbits

Filling my free time with work and games and friends, and less so with internet lately. Which means I have a great many things I'd like to post about, and not enough time to post it in, so a lot of stuff will probably just get left by the wayside. Yana's birthday was last Monday, and we had a bit of a party - some drinks, lots of food (bought too much, actually, but with gamers, erring on the side of caution is best), Wii games. Good times. Speaking of Wii games, RE4 for the Wii is pretty sweet - little bit weird getting used to the controls, but really nice when you finally do. Jon bought it Saturday along with some new clothes, and I got socks without holes in them and a USB mouse, which I'm using right now (finally, I can play Halflife!). DnD campaign continues to be short-bus special - our prissy female elven wizard managed to get killed by giant rats and reincarnated into a male dwarf.

There's a bunch of photos from Yana's b-day posted on Facebook - may put some up here, although not sure yet. But one photo for the moment, because the last one I posted of Jon was crappy - better one!

Thinking of doing a flist cut because it's getting out of control again, but I'm afraid of stepping on toes. Will see.

So Apparently I Have A Boyfriend

Yeah, I'm as surprised as I bet all of you are about this. But he's nerdy and socially awkward and probably prettier than I am, and a total sweetheart, so I'll see how things work out.

Here, have a crappy camera phone photo of said boyfriend (his name is Jon) drunk.

The Pigeon Incident

I have apparently aquired a hopping social life recently. This perplexes, but does not displease me. So in the last week, I saw Ocean's Thirteen (which prompted a '...Why can't our plans go off that well in Shadowrun?' 'Because we're broke. And playing against Nick' conversation), baked a very chocolately cake, stayed up until 4am playing Mario Party 8, and got talked into joining a fourth campaign - I'm re-writing Anya for it, as she got basically no play time in RR.

Shadowrun had a bit of amusement last week, too, as alluded to in the subject line. Our idiot mage has a spell that can shapechange people into animals. Unfortunately, clothes don't transform, so when you change back, you're totally naked. In Lucia's case, this was in the middle of a mall parking lot. With nothing to show for it, because we were trying to do surveillance for our next run, but the mage is too stupid to work an RFID camera remotely. It was full of epic fail and much hilarity for the players.

Also, Yana's bedroom keeps being invaded by squirrels in the middle of the night. I told her she should start training them and form a squirrel army.

Epic Win!

Sixty-seven in organic! FTW! And Chris passed, so now we're just hoping Andrea did as well.

Entry tags:

geekery

A Great Many Things

Wow, haven't posted in a while - life has been busy, and I still have no internet at home. Summer classes are over, although I don't know what my marks are yet - currently terrified I failed orgo, which is a distinct possibility because the final was what makes or breaks the grade, and I don't have the mark back yet. 77% in the lab, which is...well, not amazing, but not terrible either. I got rather trashed Friday night on coolers and a bunch of Jello shots, and ended up being very sick soon after, which was not my most glamorous moment. But Rayman for the Wii is lots of fun, and I had a great time up until the point where I got very sick, so in the end it was alright. And lastly, our D&D party looks to be short bus-special (I'm the halfling rogue. And the tank), and proving I have no sense of self-preservation, accepted a ride to work from a rich young woman in a black SUV who saw me running to the bus stop only to be ten seconds too late.

...I live a strange and sometimes wonderful life.

And a brief game story that I think people will still find funny even if they weren't there: Shadowrun has a contacts system for people the characters who have established relationships with, business or otherwise. Nick, Almighty GM 1, plays all the contacts and other NPCs, and is very good about giving them distinct personalities. Shiver, who hits on anything female, has a contact who's a stripper named Josie. He calls her for a favor, and much flirting ensues. Which leads to me and and Aaron trying not start laughing hysterically because it's not actually a hot female striper and a good-looking guy having this conversation, it's two nerdy 20-something guys.