zrath

Well, it's been an interesting week...

Monday: Urrrrrrrr, I did something bureaucratic and time-consuming, but I can't remember what.
Oh well!

Tuesday: I went to my local EDD office to get some info on my unemployment benefits claim.
My one-year claim ended on July 25th, and there's still money in it, and I'm still unemployed.
So I was wondering what was gonna happen. Do I file another claim? Does the extension kick in?
Instead of spending a long time trying to get through on the phone, I figured I'd go to the office.
I tried the website but the info was simply not there.
Anyway, I get to the office, and it's a pale shadow of what it was 3 years ago.
It's basically a reception area and a bank of computers for people to browse job listings.
No one at the office has access to claim information any more.
They made me wait my turn to use a phone to call the EDD office in Sacramento.
What. The. Frak.
And when I got through to a living human being, she basically took my information down and told me
somebody would be in touch within the next 10 days. (!!!!!!!!)
WHAT. THE. FRAK.
It's, like, nobody has access to the information! Not even the people who work there!
What manner of complete insanity is this!?!??
ZRATH SMASH!!!

Once home, I found an e-mail from slipdragon that he received the money I sent him. He's moving soon and he was
selling a bunch of stuff. Of particular interest to me was a large plastic tub full of Lego.
We're talking about 45 POUNDS of high-tech ABS goodness! According to him, the tub contains all the
Classic Space sets from 1979 to the mid-80's. That's pretty incredible in itself, but there's more!
Early Star Wars sets like the X-Wing, B-Wing, A-Wing, Y-Wing and TIE Advanced, along with a Cloud City
playset and this Millenium Falcon. I only have the tiny Mini Falcon, so that's totally awesome!
I've seen a photo of the tub, I could see bits of partly assembled sets that match the description.
He mentioned that he was missing a lot of instructions, but thanks to the massive Lego Internet presence,
finding scanned instructions and complete part inventories is easy as cake, and piece of pie. :)
My plan for this tub is to sort everything and rebuild as many sets as possible. Some will go on eBay
and some will stay in my permanent collection. I have a lot of Classic Space stuff already, so all the
duplicates are headed for the auction block. I'm hoping to fill some of the holes in my collection.
This will be a long-lasting project, I've got my work cut out for me. But I'm not complaining! :D

That night, I watched Disc 1 of "Torchwood: Children of Earth", with the first three episodes.
Hummmmmm, wow. What's with the alien that looks like the missile silo creature from original "Half Life"?
It's much smaller of course, but still. I was dreading how this was going to end.


Wednesday: The driver's side power window on the F(n)ord (St)Ranger, which had been acting up for a month,
finally decided it wouldn't go down anymore. No amount of pushing on the door could coax it to lower.
So I called Joe The Mechanic, who's familiar with the patient, and made an appointment for the next day.
I completed my errands for the day with the driver's side window up, the passenger side window down,
and the climate control on full. The air conditioning doesn't work, so it was blowing in outside air.
Driver's side window stuck in up position + no A/C + L.A. summer = DEATH! Well, sort of...
Netflix e-mailed me to let me know that Disc 2 of "Torchwood: Children of Earth" was en route.


Thursday: I was up bright and early at 08:00. I stopped at McDo for a couple of Sausage McMuffins and
arrived at Joe's at 09:00. They opened the driver's side door panel and started diagnosing the problem.
Turns out the motor was dead and needed to be replaced. Joe called around and found one, but it wouldn't
be there until the next day. So they rigged my window to stay up, despite them having removed the motor
and the bracket and everything else, and sent me on my way.
Once I got home, I found an e-mail from Slip with the shipping confirmation number for the Lego tub. W00T!!
Said tub is scheduled for delivery early next week. Excellent! I gotta make sure I'm home to get it.
I also found Disc 2 of "Torchwood: Children of Earth", with the last 2 episodes, in my mailbox.
I watched it that night and found myself wishing harm on the writer/producer, RTD, aka Russell T. Davis.
I am so glad this man is no longer involved with "Doctor Who".
However, Auntie Sue (selenesue) told me that Season 4 of "Torchwood" is already planned.
Well, golly, there's NOT MUCH LEFT of Torchwood after "Children of Earth"! What's going to happen?
I went to bed at 02:00, slightly angry. Argh.


Friday: Up bright and early at 08:00 and at Joe's at 09:00.
The motor was scheduled to arrive by UPS at 10:30, so I chilled and read the current issue of Car & Driver.
I also browsed Popular Mechanics and saw a blurb about the new Nerf gun coming out in September.
It looks like a WWII submachine gun and uses a 35-dart drum magazine. Check it out.
The forward grip slides back and forth. If you cycle the grip back and forth once, pressing the trigger
shoots one dart. If you keep the trigger down and cycle the grip repeatedly, you get rapid fire.
I had an old Edison Giocattoli toy submachine that worked the same way, it shot little rubber shells.
Can you believe I originally bought it at Toys'R'Us in the '80s? How things change...

The motor arrived at 11:00, and upon opening the box, it was discovered that it was the wrong part.
But of course!!! Story of my life! They sent the passenger side window motor, an exact mirror image.
Time to go home? Yes! Because the new part wouldn't get here in time to be installed. OH BOY!!

I had promised girlfmkitty that I would help her move boxes today, so I rang her up once I got home.
Since no one from the EDD had contacted me yet, I filed a new claim on the website. Can't hurt, I guess.
After getting some late lunch (those McDo McMuffins are made of lead, I swear!), I went over to her old pad
to load up the (St)Ranger. We made two trips in total and got a lot done. Her new place is a couple of
blocks from my default Trader Joe's, amusingly enough. Plenty of stuff in walking distance too.
I got home early enough to be able to put some items up for auction on eBay. Click here to see my auctions.
I've got some of them newfangled Lego Star Wars minifigures like Admiral Ackbar and Mon Mothma and stuff.
By the way, if anyone local has something they want to eBay, but can't do it for whatever reason, I'm
willing to help out. I have a digital camera, I know shipping, and I can do write-ups. Just let me know.
I didn't get a call from Joe The Mechanic, so I had no idea if the right motor had come in or not.


Saturday: Joe called me up at 09:00 to let me know the right motor was there. I rolled out of bed,
prepped, and got there at 10:00 sharp. They put the motor in, put everything back together and voila!
I gave Joe all my cash and he let me pay the rest of the bill later. He's such a cool guy!
I got home at around 13:00 and called GirlKitty to tell her I was ready to help with the actual big move.
After grabbing some lunch stuff from Ralphs, I went to her new pad to greet the fridge delivery people
while she and Auntie Sue went back to the old place to pack more stuff and supervise the movers.
I ate lunch, read my Car & Driver and laughed at the pathetic usable range of the all-electric Mini E.
The rest of the day was taken up with moving stuff to the new apartment, unloading everything, stacking
boxes willy-nilly, and trying to figure out where to have dinner. Dinah's Family Restaurant won out.
3 of the 5 of us had chicken fried steak, myself included. We don't why. :D
After dinner, there was one final load of stuff to grab at the old apartment. To my surprise, everything
fit in the back of (St)Ranger. Everybody's ass was draggin' while we unloaded the truck at the new place.
Finally, I was done! I went home and immediately showered, checked e-mail and stuff, then went to bed.
It was almost 03:00.


Sunday: I stayed in bed until 14:00! Woooooooooh!
To my surprise, I was not nearly as sore as I thought I would be.
I had a late lunch at In-N-Out, then did some grocery shopping, then put up some more stuff on eBay.
Then I relaxed and watched "Taken", with Liam Neeson. OMG what a kick-ass little film!
Neeson's daughter goes to Paris and promptly gets kidnapped by white slavers. He's a retired agent,
like an older version of Michael Westen from "Burn Notice", and he goes to Paris to get her back.
The film is cowritten by Luc Besson and contains at least two scenes that made me go "F*CK!" out loud.
It's less than 90 minutes but it's jampacked with ass-kicking goodness and action-packed action! :D
The Kzin says "check it out"!

And it took me two hours to type this, and it doubled in size and picked up several links in the process.
I think it's time for beeeeeeeeeed!
Bonne nuit!

Doop-dee-doo...

Nothing much to report here.
Just working and working and working and working and strategizing the rent paying.
The job is going well, the people are nice, the building is new, and I'm definitely getting my 40 hours a week.
Well, except for next week. We get Monday off, and us contractors don't get paid for it.
It's a Canadian civic holiday of some kind, the first Monday of August, and corporate HQ is in Toronto.
They keep saying it's Mustard Day, but I found no such thing on the Intarweb.
And besides, if one country is entitled to having a Mustard Day, it's France, not Canadaland. :)
However, the overtime we've racked up more than makes up for this unpaid day off.
We get fed dinner when we stay late on weekdays, and lunch when we come in on weekends.
They're taking good care of us.

We had a cool little company BBQ on Friday.
Half the food was homemade, including some delectable red potatoes with dill.
I had a couple of burgers and a tasty hot sausage.
We had the BBQ outdoors, at a nearby park. There's also a small skatepark area, so our promo people went over
to watch the kids skate and give away some Tech Deck fingerboards, which is one of our products.
I got a fingerboard too, a Birdhouse design with the skeletal hawk on it.

It's funny how I wind up coming back to skateboarding.
Back in France in the late '70s, I skated in the Sibling's team. Well, I was more of a mascot really.
Then in 2000, I tested "Tony Hawk 2" for PlayStation and Dreamcast for Activision.
In 2002, the documentary "Dogtown & Z-Boys" came out and Pascal and I were all over it.
The Sibling had all the skateboard magazines featuring the Dogtown crew back in the day.
In 2005, a movie version of the Dogtown & Z-Boys story came out, "Lords Of Dogtown".
We were all over that too.
And now it's 2008, and I'm working on a skateboard-related videogame project once more.
Before you ask, no, I haven't taken up skateboarding again.
I'm too old, too out of shape and too heavy.
I would break a million things.
It's a game for the young.

You're never too old for Nerf warfare though! :D
And with this puppy, you will see your enemies driven before you and hear the lamentations of their women!



Yup, it's finally out, at the promised $39.99 price point.
Not only that but it also comes with an extra belt, 25 extra darts and a shoulder strap!
ME WANT!
All it takes is one or two of these, plus the 3 Ultimator bazookas I already have, and the QA department
will achieve Nerf superiority over all other departments at work. I can smell victory already!
(:poses heroically)