zrath

Hello out there in LJ-Land!
I hope all the mothers had a nice Mother's Day.

So the weather cooled down on Friday and I dragged my futon back in the bedroom.
Everybody at work had a serious case of the Fridays, acting goofy and half-drunk and watching the clock.
There were plans to go to a bar for karaoke after work, but I think that fell apart. People were tired.
I know I was. I pretty much went straight home and dozed in front of the TV.

On Saturday, Jean-Louis and I had planned to go to his cousin's house in Malibu to borrow his little boat and use it
to go out to sea to spread the rest of Pascal's ashes. Traffic was proving to be a formidable foe though.
PCH Northbound from Santa Monica was its usual congested self until all the public beaches were passed and traffic
thinned considerably. I rendez-voused with J-L at the corner of PCH and Topanga Canyon then followed him.
We drove North for a while, passing Surf U. (aka Pepperdine University), then traffic came to a complete stop.
This was not good.
J-L got out of his car to tell me that his cousin was, in fact, not home. Putain de sa mère!!!
A sheriff car drove by on the median. I got out of the car to peer down the road and see what was up.
A paramedic truck drove by on the other side, going the wrong way and freaking out all Southbound traffic.
Yeah, it was an accident up ahead, about 500 meters from us.
Some days, things just don't click.
I got back in the (St)Ranger and told J-L I was outta here. I worked my way out of the Northbound lanes, over the
thankfully very low median, and unto the Southbound side. J-L was right behind me. I buzzed him on his cellphone
and discussed lunch plans. He took me to a mexican and sushi joint in this very Club Med-like shopping village.
Lots of children and dogs and people in tasteful shorts and shirts. Malibu high class if you will.
I had a chicken burrito which I later noticed didn't have any cheese in it. It was good and fresh.
After lunch, we discussed plans to try again next weekend then went our separate ways.
I drove home and hit some monstrous traffic on PCH. I considered taking Sunset Boulevard, but traffic seemed lighter
after Sunset so I stuck to PCH, and yes it got lighter. PCH became the 10 Freeway and took me home.
After changing, I went back out to mail a couple of small packages, the last of the eBay auctions.
The post office was closed, apparently shut down early for Mother's Day. Damn and blast!
I ran a couple of errands, hit some unexpected heavy traffic spots (just a bad day to drive, I guess!),
then stopped at Snob Foods (Whole Foods) to get some better sushi than what is sold at Trader Joe's.
I went home, fired up the computer and ate my sushi. It was fresher and tastier, yes.
Afterwards, I poured all the pieces from the Count Dooku Solar Sailer Lego set on my desk and set about designing
and building a Geonosian Interceptor, a beefier version of the Geonosian Fighter, one of my favorite ships.
I kept at it from 7pm until 1am, watching some Season 4 "Doctor Who" and Season 2 "Burn Notice" while building.
I came up with something I like, overall, and I took pictures for later uploading to Flickr.
And then I went to bed...

On Sunday, I slept in and had all sorts of bizarre dreams I could not recall after getting up.
I hung out online for a while, and worked my way through a small stack of Games For Windows magazines I had never
gotten around to reading. GFW used to be Computer Gaming World, one of the oldest game magazines in existence.
CGW used to cover all the major computers of the time, like the Apple ][s, C64s, Atari 8-bits and STs, Macs, Amigas,
and IBM PCs (once they got graphics and games to go with them). Now the magazine is PC-only, not even Mac coverage.
I read the magazines then threw them out. No reason to keep them around. While I was at it, I took all the garbage out.
I did some housekeeping stuff, and when it was all over, I settled down and watched "The Spirit" on DVD.
Oh dear lord...
Frank Miller is an asshole.
I'll talk about the movie in a future Netflixing post.

Monday! Monday was overbearing and awful and stinky-poo!
I kept dropping things, stuff kept going wrong, machines were acting up.
Monday was soooooo fired!!!
I went straight home after work, made pasta for dinner, and watched "End Of Days" with The Governator.
Only then did I fire up El Computador and go online to hang out with friends and weirdos on FurryMuck.

Tuesday! Tuesday was better.
Work went well. During lunch, I went to Target and picked up some snacks so I could stop bumming food off my coworkers
when 5pm hunger pangs made me growl. I also restocked on cereal for the morning breakfast. My box of Frosted Flakes
contained a Star Trek Beam-Up Badge in it! Which is just a weak LED flashlight shaped like a Federation insignia.
Or in my case, a Romulan insignia. It doesn't even make cool beeping noises. LAAAAAAAME!!!!!
Anyway, it's 7pm and time to go home.
See all y'all later!

It was a hot week leading up to an even hotter weekend.
On Friday, I loaded up Stranger 6 with 11 trash bags full of the late Sibling's clothing.
Pants, shirts, t-shirts, sweater, jackets, shoes, boots, some of this stuff was hardly worn.
Everything went to the local American Cancer Society Discovery Shop.
It seemed fitting.
I kept a few items as personal mementoes: the shirt Domino Harvey gave him, some of the stuff he wore
at Burning Man, his personalized paintball jersey, a leather jacket he got from my dad...

I didn't sleep too good Friday Night because of the heat.
There is no A/C in the bedroom, just a window fan, and I wasn't getting any relief from that.
I woke up Saturday morning and set about getting ready to leave for the FurBQ.
Everything had been prepared the night before to save time. There were a couple of items I had to
drop off at the post office first though, some eBay stuff. Then I hit the road proper.
The 405 was a hopeless mess, so I did the La Cienega Boogie and grabbed the 405 further down, at LAX.
Traffic was a lot smoother there, and I averaged about 75mph on the way down.
I got as far as the 55 North, then panicked slightly as the Chapman exit did not materialize.
I exited at Edinger and phoned up doodlesthegreat to get a bit of directions.
Turns out I had exited too soon and should have stayed on the 55 past the 5. D'oh!
I got back on the 55, found Chapman, and made the rest of my way to the Irvine Regional Park.
I have been to every FurBQ evar (all 10!), so I knew where it was, but I usually wasn't the one driving.
So anyway, I grabbed the closest parking spot I could find, which was still 2 parking lots away.
The lots had been resurfaced recently and the markings had not been applied yet, so people were parked
in somewhat haphazard fashion, reducing the amount of actual available parking spots. Le grrrrrrr...
I schlepped my stuff to the gathering, put the chips (Kettle brand salt and pepper, 4 bags) and water
(case of 24 half-liter Arrowhead bottles) on the food table, and set up the suitcase and the signs.
I had a brought a suitcase full of t-shirts, along with some baseball caps and a couple of bandannas.
Half the shirts were from Amp'd Mobile and the other half was a mix of stuff belonging to DJ Pascal.
I always tried to score promo t-shirts for him whenever I went to events and tradeshows, so I had
shirts from "Pirates: At World's End", "A Scanner Darkly", "Star Trek Continuum" and others.
I had made a couple of signs in Photoshop using a fake Russian font.
One sign said "Free T-Shirts - only for furry comrades who wear size XL".
And it was true. Everything was size XL. Thankfully, plenty of furries were that size.
By the end of the FurBQ, I only had 3 t-shirts left. Everything else was gone.

The weather was hot, but there was plenty of shade and the occasional breeze.
The bugs were out in force. I have about 7 bitemarks to prove it, all on my lower legs.
Next time, I'm wearing knee-length armored boots, I swear!
And I'm bringing a folding chair of some kind.
I ate pretty lightly: a couple of cheeseburgers, one hot dog and some chips.
I had brought a couple of magazines and a Lego set, but I didn't really need 'em.
I tried the new XTREEM! Squirt soda and it tastes pretty bad. I hope they still make normal Squirt.
Otherwise, there will be a huge latino-fueled riot. I'm not even kidding!
Let's see, I spent time talking to various friends and peoples. Schirmeister showed up and tried to
get me to come to his July 4th BBQ. I made vague noncommittal noises.
I helped Stego with emptying the soda coolers of melted ice water and resupplying them with ice and soda.
I didn't take any pictures. You've seen a bunch of furries in a park, you've seen 'em all. :)
Darn, I never did post about Califur! Maybe later. I have a few photos of that.
All in all, it was a good day outdoors, talking to people and noshing on stuff.
It was really hot back at the Kzinti Freehold, so better the FurBQ than sweltering at home.

The event started wrapping up at sundown and I left soon after.
The temperature gauge was the highest I'd seen it on the truck, but it went down as soon as I hit
the 55 and reached cruising speed. I made a mental note to put more premix into the radiator later.
I missed taking the 22 Westbound and figured I would just take the 5 Northbound instead.
WRONG! You can only take the 5 Southbound when you're Southbound on the 55!
Apparently, the natives know to take the 22 West instead to grab the 5 North.
Screw the tourists!! They don't need to go North! Goddamned Orange County freeway bullshit!
Anyway, I got off the 55 and took surface streets West for a while, then North.
I eventually hit the 5, got on, went to cruise speed, enjoyed myself for maybe 10 minutes...
And then we all slowed to a crawl. At 10pm. On a Saturday. WTF?
I saw 4 identical white (or possibly yellow) fire trucks without markings zoom by in the carpool lane.
5 minutes later, we started accelerating again after passing some spent flares on the freeway and
a couple of trashed cars resting on the right shoulder. Hmmmmm, accident just finished cleaning up.
Cruising speed was reached and sustained pretty much all the way.
Upon approaching the 10 freeway transition in Downtown L.A., I saw the 4 white (yellow?) fire trucks
again, still driving in formation, and taking the 5 Northbound. Hmmmmm, fire trucks without markings.
I got home unloaded the stuff and walked into the Kzinti Freehold. And it was HOT in there!!
The A/C was turned on post-haste, and the computer in the bedroom was thoroughly ignored.
Too hot in there to compute. I dragged my futon into the living room with the intent of sleeping there.
I chilled and watched Volume 3 of "Black Lagoon", the politically unafraid action anime for grown-ups.
Fun stuff! I highly recommend it! Then I watched some Season 2 "Babylon 5" on DVD.
Then went to sleep in the blessed coolness.

Sunday: too hot to use the computer, so avoided doing that.
Went to Chipotle for lunch and got quarters for laundry. Did two loads and played "Need For Speed:
Most Wanted" while the laundry was happening. Had the living room A/C on, of course.
The Ford GT in "NFS:MW" is a BEAST! It feels heavy and powerful and reaches insane speed!
But it is not nimble. Also, with the turbo installed, it makes scary whining noises.
I'm one milestone short of being able to challenge the Number 2 guy on the list.
I need to dodge 8 spike-strips equipped roadblocks successfully. Unfortunately, the pursuit Corvettes
have a tendency to show up rather quickly and they are ruthless! And sometimes, they just cheat.
The Ford GT is not the tool to use for cop evasion. The Renault Clio works better.
Eventually, laundry was done and I had to brave the bedroom to fire up the computer and check e-mail.
Not much there to see. E-mail is usually slow on weekends.
Not much feedback regarding the DJ Pascal mix CDs. I am disappointed.
Maybe it will pick up during the week.
I made myself a light dinner and watched Disc 3 of Season 1 of "The Invaders" ("In Color!").

Then I watched 2 more Season 2 episodes of "Babylon 5". One episode had a commentary track of
Claudia "Ivanova" Christian, Bruce "Sheridan" Boxleitner and Jerry "Garibaldi" Doyle basically
goofing off and making fun of how young they looked back then.
Bruce: "Wow Jerry, look at that! You have hair!"
Claudia: "Yeah, look at that! It's like a Chia Pet!"
Jerry: "And here's Captain Happy! Seriously, you were always smiling!"
Bruce: "I know, I know. Joe came down a few times and asked to smile less."
Jerry: "Watch out Susan! He's gonna offer you orange juice!"
I haven't laughed that hard in a while!! :D
And then I laughed even harder when I heard THIS tonight!!
I got it from klaatuwolf, it's a Luke Ski song called "No Sleep Til Babylon".
You can listen on the webpage, or download an MP3 (128).
It's the Beastie Boys' seminal "No Sleep Til Brooklyn" done Babylon 5 style!
It's also got bits of other Beastie Boys tunes in it! And special guest rapper Zathras!
It's freakin' hilarious! Make sure you listen all the way to the end!
SPOO!!