First off: Happy birthday, celli!

Second off: Okay, drunken DDR is an AWESOME THING to do on your birthday. seriously.

and yes, my furniture is intact.

OKAY! So I think I know why con reports never get done: I get too many quotes and can never finish. Soooo I am just going to do a bare-bones con report and then COME BACK AND ADD QUOTES AND STUFF LATER.

So, anyway. G2008.

( Thursday, or Fun With Airport Delays )

( Friday - The Crazy Begins )

More later!

At parents this weekend. Cookout went straight from 2 to 10:30 after which I passed out after playing with the adorable but sugar-high-charged cousins. Going out to see a movie shortly.

Short version: To the half-dozen people I told I'd be online today for various things, I WAS WRONG. May be on late tonight when I get home, but it's not happening this afternoon. :)

Okay, con journal is still pending. Work is INSANE since we all just hit the "ohshitwe'regonnadie" homestretch. Also, my cell phone vanished last night, and after finally concluding it was lost/broken/stolen (I called it, and it was turned off. I never shut it off and the battery was good), ran around trying to find and activate my old phone for the month remaining on my contract.

Also, picked up Blue Beetle #28. ...I am once again grateful that Will Pfeifer is NOT the regular writer. Not going to go into details, but I don't think anybody was in character, and I saw the big "twist" coming miles away. Also, the resolution? Was ridiculous. Seriously, Jaime was a hell of a lot more in character in his Manhunter cameo and that wasn't even his own book!

Sturges had better be good. I realize John Rogers is a tough act to follow, but after the two months of Pfeifer-penned suck I'm missing his work on this title even more. If the quality continues to go downhill, I might actually drop the book.

Anyway, back to fighting with image uploads now.

I'm home from the Gathering in one piece.

Am hungry.

Have no food in fridge save the leftovers Mom donated (♥ thanks Mom).

THIS MUST BE RECTIFIED NOW.

More later.

It occurred to me that this LJ has enjoyed near-total radio silence this month. So:

Not dead.
Beach was nice.
Work is driving me nuts.
Family is... crazy but it's quieter than usual
Dr. Z liked the awful class paper.
Read BB #27, and I'm glad Will Pfeifer is not the regular writer. Blah.
I'm at the 2008 Gathering of the Gargoyles now using the wireless hotel network on the last day and the fanfic panel is starting.

There will be an extensive con report. AND MAYBE THIS YEAR I WILL FINISH IT.

For those who know why I'm up at this hour:

My folks' plane finally got in. American Airlines, you fail.

I picked them up, they packed their car and are heading home.

I'm gonna be late tomorrow, but my branch chief has been warned.

sleep now.

ETA: ...I'd say rest in peace, George Carlin, but he wouldn't be happy that way. D:

Okay. Said this before elsewhere, but I am not allowed near LiveJournal anymore in the midst of the Mood Swing Morning of Doom. I'm fine, I just tend to get worked up over really petty things.

Switching over to topics of NOT failing: Now that Southwest and BWI have settled things, I have finally booked a room and plane tickets for G2008. Also, since the G2008 forum is having severe issues I'll throw the offer out here - if anybody needs a roommate, contact me and brooklynx. We've got space for a third.

Still need to:

1) Figure out what to do about carry-ons. Most importantly, how to get Carmine there safely. Not sure if mailing him is the best option, but even if they let me carry him on I can only imagine if they make me stow him under the seat/overhead and he goes crunch courtesy of somebody's feet/luggage.

2) Find out if the hotel rooms have safes. This will impact any decision to take the laptop with me. Didn't take it to G2007 because there was none and I learned years ago that you can't always trust housekeeping. (Okay, the culprit in the Econo Lodge incident was not the brightest crayon in the box and this is no Econo Lodge, but still.) They DO and apparently are big enough to store a laptop. Now I... need to figure out if I can bring the laptop. I want to because I think it's the only way I'm going to finish a con report for the first time since 2003.

3) Find out about food/etc in the immediate area. Preferably stuff within safe walking distance so I don't wind up dragging Greg Wiseman six blocks to find a pharmacy in New York again. (Yeah, that was '03 but I still look back on that and feel bad about it. Nobody else knew where it was.)

4) Figure out the rest of the to-do list because this is way too short.

5) Get lunch because hey, it's noon. Well, that was easy.

Sooo... I had to take half a day of work off this morning because I got up and there was no word from a group member about her section of the paper.

Finally heard from her at 9:30, scrabbled to compile everything.

Paper sucked, but printed it out anyway because it was done.

Handed it to Dr. Z at 12:15 today and went to work.

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE the semester is over!


NOTE TO SELF: E-mail your prof for Electronic Commerce to see if he will tell you if he plans to assign a group paper and if it's open-topic. If so, find out about a handful of topics NOW so you don't spend half the semester arguing with people about it. Lesson learned.

HAHAHAHA I CAME, I SAW, I DID NOT SCREW UP THE FINAL.

at least I'm pretty sure. It's probably a good sign that I spent the last 20 minutes going over the association rule mining problem strictly because the solution seemed WAY too easy.

What do you know, obsessively studying random crap that could be included worked. (Man, if I hadn't stopped to review Web 2.0 at the last second...)

More later, still have the paper to worry about but that's one thing off my shoulders. Yay!

ETA: ...and apparently when I refinanced my second mortgage, not only were the closing costs waived I - got a check from the title company. This is good too. Weird, but good.

Not dead. Not totally crazy. But making myself buckle down on the final.

Plan to post an update/explanation on Wednesday. Honest.

More importantly:

Happy birthday, violetbloom!

So I was a lunch break ninja and picked up the new issue while running errands at lunch (had to hit the pharmacy anyway). Then I came back to work to find out that a lot of resources we needed to use had crashed utterly.

I... actually don't have a lot to say about the use of Spanish, surprisingly enough. Cut for spoilers and translation of completely random Scarab-speak.

( Jaime is getting hit in the head, so everything's normal here. )

The bottom line? Not bad, although there are several things I'm not sure about that don't necessarily have anything to do with the language. Also, Jaime's abuela rocks.

Haven't been dead the past week or so, just... been pretty out of it due to allergies and other stuff.

1) The Soul Eater anime is total crack. th-thank you 24 Hours of Anime

1b) Studio Ghibli's Earthsea was kind of weird... and yet it made more sense to me than the TV miniseries did. Probably because I could not take Kristen Kreuk seriously in said miniseries.

2) Benadryl + caffeine makes for an interesting combo. And can quite possibly induce signs of the apocalypse. (Hey, did anyone notice hell freezing over Saturday afternoon? ...I'll expound on why later.)

3) Heat wave + promptly getting FREAKING COLD again = extreme difficulty getting up in the morning. I-I wish Maryland weather would get hormone therapy already or at least pick a temp and stick with it.

4) When you have the sinus headache that will not die, try writing your paper with a pen and paper because staring at the computer screen will just make your brain shut down. ...I'm positive this caused most of my lack of ability to progress on the paper this week.

5) Corollary to #4: COMMUNICATION IS GOOD. Even when you don't want to talk to your other group members. Just confess that you are stuck and brace yourself if the person you don't want to talk to is still trying to write a totally different paper than the rest of your group. Also, talking amongst the whole group is good too because then everyone can agree.

6) When I get back to work after being out sick and my boss wants to see me and I KNOW I didn't do anything wrong... it's usually good news. Like a performance award. (which in this case means extra money in the next paycheck) I shouldn't freak.

7) The SECOND I start blanking on something fic-related that's not RL or class-related, it's time to walk away and either do chores or homework.

8) Trying to fax something while running out the door will guarantee that the fax machine will screw with you.

ANYWAY GETTING TO THE POINT: I'm registered for G2008 but... have no room or plane tickets yet. Part of the reason is because the friends I was going to go with can't go now, and part of the reason is that I'm half-frightened that I will book tickets and then the airline will go "oh hey, we're bankrupt! find your own way home" like Airbus did to my Mom.

Anybody going who needs roommates? Or who can squeeze somebody in? I-I've got to work out the plane tickets myself but if I have roomies it'll help me plan how much time I can take off and know when to book tickets. I know I've been putting this off but stress and other things have pushed it to the back of my mind. Help?

Okay, so apparently the pollen count is at RECORD levels these past two days. And what did I do this afternoon?

...go mow my lawn.

GO ME AND MY SUPPORT OF THE ALLERGY MEDS BUSINESS. thank goodness for Benadryl.

Unfortunately, this is going to make the 24 Hours of Anime marathon at UMBC tomorrow night just that much harder.

In other news. Dr. Z liked our intermediate report so I'm trying to research that more. Trying. Even though I would rather be writing fic.

And that sums up like the last week.

*faceplant*

Not allowed to post in my LJ until after I've gotten caught up on the friends list. Period. End of story.

Translation: If I'm suddenly commenting on people's journals again, I just realized I am THREE WEEKS behind on even looking at my friends list. Which is totally and utterly inexcusable, grad school or not. If I have time to bitch, I have time to read and sympathize.

*sigh* Okay, look. I know Otakon is huge. I know that slots fill up quickly.

But for the love of God, people - if you're going to close registration for the artists' alley less than 24 hours after you open it, ADVERTISE THE WINDOW WELL IN ADVANCE DAMMIT!

...I'm not even one of the people who was trying to get a table and I'm pissed off about this. Damn. So much for the live-action WoW quests. Boo.

OH MY GOD THE INTERMEDIATE REPORT IS DONE.

It's like a half-finished draft, but that's what it's supposed to be and I think we somehow FINALLY AGREED ON WHAT IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE ABOUT. OH MY GOD.

New rule: NO MORE VAGUE GROUP PROJECTS. I don't know if I can enforce that rule, but I CAN DREAM.

...of course, now we have to figure out how to delegate to finish the complete project. But I'm going to take the win - LOOK IT'S NOT EVEN 11 PM YET!

*thud*

Note to self: Caffeine is not an adequate substitute for sleep.

So while slogging through papers for my group research paper, I read the first item in a reference list that made me laugh out loud:

Ivan Marc Author. "Some related article I wrote." Some Fine Journal, 99(7): 1-100, January 1999.

This was in a published paper for an international conference. The very first item.

I don't know which would be funnier: if that ref got in there by accident and they totally missed it or if that was a genuine reference.

Heh.

Be sure that the surge protector is inside the box under your desk at all times.

Because being reminded of why the box is there the hard way - that is, turning it off with your foot - is not fun.

All I lost was a really long e-mail I was writing, but... if I seemed to ditch people on chat or IRC all of a sudden, sorry.

It was not me, it was my foot. :)