gwalla

Well, I managaed to royally hose my OS last night. I was trying to upgrade from Fedora 6 to Fedora 8, but when I tried to boot it after the upgrade finished, it said that it can't find any of my RAID arrays, and went into kernel panic.

Fuck.

Fortunately, I at least had the good sense to back up my /home directory beforehand. So most of my stuff still exists. And, actually, I think I may be able to access my arrays when I boot from the rescue disc, so once I get a new external HD (my current one is full), I can probably slurp down my /usr directory and then just do a fresh install.

But still. Fuck.

Tonight I managed to slap myself in the eye with a pho noodle covered in spicy broth.

In related news, a bean sprout up the nose is a potent reminder of the importance of stereoscopic vision.

&%*$@*#$¢!!!

Tried to replace the default case fan for my new PC and only succeeded in ruining the screws. Fuck. Guess I'm gonna have an LED fan after all. Hopefully it won't be too noisy.

I had the idea to pull my existing HD out of my current PC and stick that in, so I could continue to boot Windows off of it with my old data intact. Is this possible? Will Windows shit itself if it finds itself on a system with a different mobo & processor? I'd like to find out BEFORE I try it myself.

Whatever happens, I'm going to back up my data first. BTW, anybody have any suggestions on that front? I was looking at FireWire external drives and they were crazy expensive. USB drives aren'tall that much cheaper, either. Seems like a big waste for something I'd probably only use twice (once to copy all of my data, once to copy that data onto my new machine). I don't have a DVD-R drive, and I have waaaaay too much data (a nearly full 80GB drive; my documents & settings folder contains over 56GB) to just burn a bunch of CDs.

Today sucked mightily. I'm in book print this week, which normally I don't mind, but the books I'm getting seem to be a bad batch and keep getting mangled in the printers. The men's room is closed due to it catching on fire over the weekend. Also, a fire alarm got pulled today and we had to evacuate for a bit. No fun.

I think it's to make up for the rather awesome weekend I just had. On Friday night I went to the San Francisco Symphony to hear Michael Tilson Thomas conduct a few Stravinsky pieces and one Takemitsu piece. MTT has a reputation as a great interpreter of Stravinsky, and he's one of my favorite composers, so it was a nearly ideal opportunity to finally check out Davies Hall and the SF Symphony. I caught the pre-concert talk, which didn't really help me understand what was going on later, but was still enjoyable. Someone apparently had a heart attack or something like it right after the talk, and someone actually shouted out "Is there a doctor in the house?" I never thought I'd hear that said seriously. Given the absence of EMTs in the lobby, I think it turned out okay.

The performance did not disappoint. The first half was two Stravinsky pieces: the Symphonies for Winds and the short ballet Apollo (not staged). Both were great, but Apollo really stood out. After the intermission was Fantasma/Cantos by Takemitsu and Stravinsky's Symphony of Psalms. The piece by Takemitsu is for clarinet solist and orchestra, and the soloist was Richard Stoltzman, for whom it was written. The piece really didn't do much for me—it relies on big washes of sound, while I tend to prefer pieces where it feels like every note counts—but I did like Stoltzman's clarinet tone, which almost felt jazzy in places (I was not terribly surprised to read in his bio on the program that he had done some work with jazz artists). The Symphony of Psalms involved the SF Symphony Chorus as well as the orchestra, and was dazzling. The second movement is a double fugue between chorus and orchestra!

Then on Sunday I took my dad to see Dave Brubeck playing at the Masonic Auditorium as part of the SFJazz series. Dave is looking a little shaky these days (he's 86!) and his voice is cracking, but he can still play piano like anything. He played two sets: one with his current quartet, and one with a big band. His quartet is very cool: his saxophonist doubled on flute for one piece, his drummer can pound out some great rhythms, and his bassist played with a bow for one piece. The big band included his quartet as well as additional saxes, brass, and a percussionist (marimba, glockenspiel, and miscellaneous untuned percussion, I think). I didn't catch the titles for the quartet set. The big band played, among other things, his Theme to Mr. Broadway (for a TV show that had the misfortune to go up against The Man From U.N.C.L.E. in its heyday) and expanded arrangements of Take Five and Blue Rondo a la Turk. They also played a fairly recent piece titled Elementals. It's based on a simple heartbeat rhythm and the melodic motif A B C, and from there branches out into a Gregorian "chant" (instrumental), a Bach-style chorale, polyrhythm, polytonality, and swing, and finally ends up in a Schoenbergian twelve-tone form. Fantastic stuff. They ended with a version of Take the "A" Train.

After that we went to Absinthe for cocktails and chatted about current events, philosophy, education, etc. over our drinks and desserts of fruit and cheese.

That was very nearly the biggest mistake of my life.

Rewind. I found out earlier today that the hotel reservations for Comic-Con had opened up, but by the time I tried to get one they were all sold out. Shit. I tried a few times, but got nowhere. So when I got home from work, I tried again. Still nothing. I decided to bypass the SDCC booking service entirely and go straight to the hotel websites, because maybe they kept some rooms aside for other guests.

I was batting zero for a while, but then the Holiday Inn On The Bay let me make a reservation. Awesome! I select the cheapest option (about $187/night) and go through the whole thing, give my credit card info and all that, and click confirm.

The total comes to over $7,000.

I had accidentally selected June 25, not July 25, as my arrival date, but correctly entered July 30 as the departure date. I'd just reserved a 2-bed room for 35 days. And to get that lower price, I'd taken the advance payment option, which you still have to pay for even if you cancel.

I tried to correct my reservation on the site, but it wasn't working. So in a panic I tried to call the hotel (nobody there but an answering machine), then Holiday Inn's main reservation line. The woman there tried to shorten my stay to just the 5 days in July I wanted, but it wasn't working. Apparently they're booked for those days (although why it allowed me to reserve a room for those days as part of a longer stay makes no sense), and she insisted that an advance payment reservation couldn't be cancelled. I was on the verge of crying, and getting nowhere. I suggested that she shorten it down to one day, any day,not necessarily in that 5-day range, that I'd just pay for as a stupidity tax. I was really grasping at straws.

She said she'd try something, and then there was silence. A lot of silence. For what seemed like forever. She briefly reappeared to say she was working on it, and then yet another ball-twisting eternity of dead air. Finally, she came back on the line, and told me that she got it cancelled. I confirmed that that meant that I wouldn't be paying for any of it, and she gave me a cancellation number to give to my credit card issuer in case the charge had already been registered. I thanked her profusely.

Afterwards I tried a few more hotels, but that experience had sucked the will out of me, and I gave up pretty quickly. So I'm still without a room for me and my friend. But at least I'm not in massive debt for no good reason.

I need a drink. And a heart transplant.

Had an appointment with a personal trainer today (one session is free with gym membership*). It went pretty well. He showed me some good exercises (I'll be lucky if I can remember more than a couple though) and gave me some valuable pointers on how to use the seated row, lateral pull-down, and counterweight pull-up machines (turns out I'd been doing it totally wrong). Nice guy. I'm considering springing for a series of sessions, to build up a routine I can work on, but dear jeebus it's expensive.

Anyway, after that and about a half hour on the elliptical trainers, I went to the locker room to wash up and change into my street clothes...and discovered I'd forgotten my combination. I ended up having to go to the front desk and borrow the lock clippers to bust it off. I feel like a complete tard. Afterwards I went stright to Walgreen's and bought a new lock with a key.

*The first one is always free...

er than a dog. Last night I was puking every hour on the hour, if not more often, for nearly the entire night. Pure bile tastes surprisingly metallic. That + explosive diarrhea = not fun. I was begging for death.

Slept for most of today. I feel better (re: not puking etc.) but still pretty lousy. My skin feels hot but I'm getting chills. I'm guessing it's some sort of flu.

Eve, if you're reading this, I'm sorry I missed the party. I'd somehow gotten it into my head that it was on the 27th. So I was all gearing up for it this week, and just checked the evite to see what time it was going to be tomorrow night...and it was on Saturday. Crap. I'd RSVPed and everything.

Okay, here's the deal. A friend has invited me to his Halloween party. Costume party, o'course. A theme costume party, and the theme is G.I. Joe.

I never watched G.I. Joe.

Sure, I was aware of it. I'd occasionally see some at friends' houses if I was over, and sometimes caught the "knowing is half the battle" end segments if I tuned in early for whatever show came on next (He-Man? I can't remember). And of course I saw ads for toys all the freaking time. But I never watched it, or paid much attention to the toys. I didn't even know there had been a movie until the advent of the Internet. Consequently, I have no idea who most of them are. Of the Joes I could probably pick Duke, Scarlett, Snake Eyes, and Sgt. Slaughter out of a lineup. From Cobra: Cobra Commander, Destro, Serpentor, and Baroness. And I couldn't really describe them in much detail (except maybe Baroness, whose rendering by BigBigTruck has been etched into my retinas). That's the extent of my knowledge. Well, that and the fact that Cobra Commander hissed "I was once a man!" in the movie, which I think I learned from X-Entertainment.com a few years ago.

So I need help coming up with a G.I. Joe costume. Preferably one made of items that are not difficult or expensive to acquire, and don't require heavy construction.

Doesn't help that I'm really not a costume person (as aurora77 can probably attest; getting me to even wear a pair of devil horns at BoardieCon a few years ago must have been like pulling teeth)

It has come to my attention that I have not known enough people. I'm filling out this godawful form for a background check for my upcoming job, which requires contacts to be listed to verify practically everything (schooling, periods of unemployment, etc.) and does not allow repeats, and I have run out of people who qualify. Argh.

I really shouldn't have read the flamewar on T Campbell's blog after drinking, because I am now feeling violently inclined towards many of its credulous subliterate participants.

My entire family wants to strangle the female skating commentator. She's always talking about "what's going through their head right now", whining about how the new scoring system makes skaters just stick in a bunch of fancy moves with no real choreography, and complaining that routines that are actually fun to watch "aren't taking enough risks". Those last two require a bit of cognitive dissonance to believe simultaneously, since one claims that big moves are being emphasized over choreography to the detriment of the sport, and the other claims that choreography is being emphasized over big moves to the detriment of the sport. You can't have it both ways (and besides, I have detected neither tendency...the only thing that stands out for me this olympiad, figure skating-wise, is the unusually large number of pratfalls on the ice). It kind of reminds me of a guy I used to game with: during combat, he'd whine that the run was nothing but combat, but out of combat he'd fall asleep. I hate that crap.

I'm at a loss as to what to do at this Thursday night's gaming session. My character's on a quest to obtain an ancient artifact and bring it back to his people (it was originally theirs, or rather the property of one of their gods, but was stolen and taken to another country). I was basically expecting a search-for-the-long-lost-doohickey situation, but when the group got to the capital city of the country where it was taken, it turns out it wasn't long lost after all. In fact, it's on display in the front of the temple of their god*. One of my allies is a priest of that god. And he's starting to question why he should be helping me do this, since it'd essentially be stealing his people's prized artifact (see, to them it's the weapon of their legendary hero, and they don't think of it as stolen, more a "spoils of war" sort of thing).

There have been hints that the one on display is actually a fake (I won't go into details, because I'd have to describe a lot of the game world and it'd take forever). That means grabbing & dashing isn't really an option, which is just as well since my guy is a (rather weak & lousy) warrior, not a rogue. But that doesn't help with the main problem, which is balancing accomplishing my quest with not pissing off my teammate.

I'm completely at a loss.

I'll be really happy when this fucking special election is over. The phone keeps ringing, and I keep having the hobble over to it wit my walking stick and bad foot, only to get a recording yammering at me about one of the initiatives. Or, better, to ave it blare music in my ear before yammering about one of the initiatives. I want to vote these people off of my fucking planet.

Went to my doctor's appointment today. All I got out of it was a prescription for indomethacin and advice to ice the ankle and keep it elevated. Well, duh. They don't have any rheumatologists at that clinic, so I'm going to have to find one on my own. Joy.

On the way home by bus I detoured to Long's to pick up my prescription. However, I wasn't in the system (since I have no health insurance) so they told me I needed to wait. So I did. For what seemed like ages. Finally, I got up and hobbled over to the drop-off window, and they said I'd have to wait for 3 hours. Uh huh. So I took the bus home, my foot hurting more and more as time passed. Every time people got on the bus, I would look at them and think "If you so much as touch my foot as you walk by, I will crush your skull with my walking stick." By the time I got dropped off, my foot hurt so much  that the only thing keeping me upright while walking the 3 blocks to my house was the strength of my hatred for the medical industry.

I'd thought I could get a ride back to Long's to pick up the pills. I'd forgotten that my dad was out on the town tonight. My mom ended up calling him on his cel, and he drove back. When he got here, he called Long's and it turned out they were closed. Great. So I'm stuck without prescription painkillers tonight.

Looks like my fears were not unfounded. My foot felt worse this morning. I got a lift to the hospital where I work, but my boss sent me away to see a doctor because I was having trouble walking. They don't take walk-ins at the primary care clinic at the hospital, so I had to go down to a place down on 6th street near University to get an appointment (fortunately, my dad gave me a ride again). The earliest appointment I could get was tomorrow afternoon. So I'm definitely going to be out tomorrow, and that may be it for this assignment depending on what they can do tomorrow. Dammit, I was getting kinda attached to receiving paychecks.

Woke up this morning and the top of my left foot felt sore. I can't think of any time yesterday when I might have twisted my ankle, but it feels like that sort of soreness. The last time my foot started hurting like that out of the blue, it got worse over a period of days until I had to go to the hospital, and turned out to be reactive arthritis. I really, really hope it's not that again. Despite working at a hospital, I don't have health insurance currently, so I'd have to pay out of pocket for any treatment.

Took a walk this afternoon. Went by several old childhood haunts, including my elementary school and the houses a few friends lived in. And the old Silver Ball Arcade. But I didn't hop the gate and go in. The stairs and door haven't been there since they remodeled the place many years ago.

While I was out, a friend called. I called him back, and it turned out that it was his birthday and I'd forgotten. He was going to go to a Kool Keith concert. I told him that I couldn't hang out, though, because I was just in a weird mental space and wouldn't be much fun to be around. I feel like such a heel.

Broke down during dinner.

Like I said I would, I've played some Joust this morning and watched some old music videos.

Big mistake.

Whenever I feel nostalgic, I always think that revisiting the subject will satisfy me, get rid of that gnawing feeling, and let me get on with things. And it always makes the feeling worse, and I end up wallowing in it. Why can't I learn?

While I was taking a bath, I thought of an idea for a short story in comics form. It starts with a kid playing video games at the old Silver Ball Arcade, then flashes forward, explaining that the arcade was closed after somebody was caught dealing drugs, the record store underneath it went out of business and was replaced by a Tower Records that expanded into the upstairs area where the Silver Ball used to be, and eventually in turn went out of business. The kid from the beginning, now grown up, is walking by and feels the urge to go in. He jumps the gate that had been locked since the arcade went under, walks up the outside steps, and finds that the door is unlocked. He opens it and finds the arcade in operation, filled with kids sporting velcro Keds. The video rental place is also open, with a poster up for Pee-Wee's Big Adventure. He walks around among the games, and eventually drops a quarter in Gyruss, which he used to love, and starts playing. The "camera" cuts to show the screen from his perspective, then cuts back, and he's a little kid again. His mother appears at the front and calls for him. He finishes up his game and runs to her, and they leave, no time having passed since the beginning of the story.

Yeah, it's semi-autobiographical except for the whole magical-realist ending.

I started tearing up in the bathtub. And I'm tearing up now, typing it out. And I feel bad for feeling bad because of such cheap sentimentality. I miss my past. I miss my old cat Shadow. I feel terrible. And now I'm starting to cry.

Listening to a cover of the Buckaroo Banzai theme. Christ, now I've got to watch that again as well as the music videos and Joust. (Fortunately, it's one of my favorite movies of all time)