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whappy happy nea land! |
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My own spot to rant about my day.
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wSunday, September 29, 2002 |
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So right now I can't breathe. I caught Dave's cold, which I knew was going to happen but am still not too happy about, and Dave decided to deglaze a pan with vinegar. Unfortunately, the pan was too hot and suddenly we had vinegar vapor in the air. It's horrible. It smells awful and I had to leave the apartment for a bit as I couldn't stop coughing. Still feel like hell and can't breathe, argh.
So, the thing Friday with my supervisor. One of our billers resigned to start a new position, near his home, for a much higher salary. This is after bouncing around through four jobs in our office in the past year and a half. He tried really hard to get two weeks to give notice, but could only get one. Since my company has an "at will" policy, or something like that, you don't technically have to give any notice at all. We already knew he was searching for a new job, so his leaving was not a surprise and was something I had planned for. I thought my supervisor had as well.
Instead, I get the lamest ass bullshit out of her. When another biller in our group asked what we were going to do, she replied that she didn't know if we'd do anything since it was such short notice. How much notice does it take to go to lunch or buy a freaking cake from Ralphs? None! Good answer. So then Friday I get an e-mail from her, basically saying she already had lunch plans (with the other supervisors, that she goes out to lunch with almost everyday anyhow) and that it wasn't payday yet and she didn't know what to do. It was a total copout. I could tell that she wanted me to reply, "Oh, it's okay, we don't have to do anything." That would have been really lame, especially given that we had another biller, in a different group, leave this week and we gave her a sending off party. Instead I replied with the fact that I would go and buy a cake from Ralphs on my lunch break and that we would get together in the afternoon. Luckily, she realized that would make her look really bad, and took it upon herself to get a cake and a card. All in all, everything turned out fine. It just really bothered me that she wanted to do nothing for him.
posted by
nea at 7:16 PM
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wFriday, September 27, 2002 |
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Feeling kinda lousy today. Dave's totally sick since his sinuses got all messed up with the fire. I've been feeling off all week, but I'm not sure if that's me getting sick or other random issues. Bleh. Hopefully I will feel better tomorrow in order to wish
Happy Birthday to Diana!
This weekend looks a little less crazy than last, which is good. I think Dave and I both need some sleep and hang time. We are finally meeting with our photographer Sunday night (it's only been four months) to give him the stuff for our album as well as a list of reprints/blowups. woo-hoo!
I have a rant I need to do about how my supervisor is handing the leaving of the biller under me, but I will do that at home, not here at work.
posted by
nea at 2:03 PM
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wWednesday, September 25, 2002 |
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Whoever said you can't control the weather never set a forest fire.
The sky is just awesome today. When I got on the road in Studio City, ahead of me the smoke clouds spread out, getting thinner as they reached toward the ocean. Behind me, the clouds merged together in a brown haze that is the Glendora fire. Over the pass, the sky seemed to go from blue to gray and foggy. As I took off my sunglasses, it was a pale brown haze wafting over the westside. The tops of tall buildings disappear into the mist. The color is a little gross, but the effect is beautiful.
Nice way to start the day.
posted by
nea at 8:47 AM
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wMonday, September 23, 2002 |
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"Gosh, why do I have a string cheese in my pocket?"
"Is that a string cheese in your pocket . . . "
". . .or are you just happy to see me."
posted by
nea at 2:34 PM
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Dave and I seem to alternate between crazily packed weekends and relatively empty ones. This one was overflowing with stuff.
Saturday we got up early, packed up our sleeping gear, parked the car at the Metro lot, and headed over to Hollywood. I guess in NY for the past hundred years they have celebrated the Feast of San Genaro, the patron saint of Naples. Theres lots of food and games booths and all that good stuff. Well, this was the first year that LA was to have a similar festival. Dave had a need, so we went. Of course, Dave didn't know exactly where it was (argh) so we started walking around, and noticed a large parade coming down the street. The parade was led by a group of indian dancers in full costume with big peacock feather headdresses. This didn't seem quite like the event we were looking for. But, further down the line, Dave spotted the bust of the saint. Ta-da, a festival! We followed the parade back to the feasting grounds, and got to watch the opening ceremonies. It was pretty cool. We got to see Jimmy Kimmel (of Man Show fame), who was one of the bust bearers. Dave got his sausage and pepper sandwich fix, and I got some tasty gelato. Yay Italian stuff.
We hopped back on the Metro to get back to the car and head straight to Newport. Sunday was Greg's birthday, as well as my dad's, so Greg was having a house party Saturday. It was fun. Very low key, lots of food and drink, just a real nice day. It was nice to just hang out with people, and just spend some time talking. I got to see Greg's new home, which I love (I want a big house in Newport! Yeah, someone needs to buy me on!) and watch a couple movies. We went out for fondue at around 9:30 at night. Yay chocolate! Dave and I want to go there again and do the whole three-course fondue thing. Kinda expensive though, but whatever. We went back to Greg's, where Dave spent most of the time napping while Greg and I got nicely drunk. It's been awhile since I've been drunk. I'm so lame these days--I was gone on two large mudslides. Pathetic pathetic nea. It's kinda nice to be a cheap drunk, though, as I used to be a really expensive one. Dave didn't want to crash at Greg's, so we headed out around 2 and got home a little after 3.
Sunday I spend most of the morning (well, all of the morning) sleeping, and then started cleaning and running around since my dad and co. was expected at 4. We went out to the Hollywood Bowl and had a nice, if slightly long time. Had lots of tasty food in this nice shaded area where we could hear the first band, then headed up to our seats to watch the rest of the show. B.B King is a great performer--mixing up talking with the audience and having fun with his band with playing music. For 77 years old, the man is doing pretty darn well. We left a tad early, since it was way too late for my little sister to be out and about, but still got to see most of the show.
The problem with overfilled weekends is that on Monday you realize how much other stuff you needed to do. We didn't make it to the gym at all. There is an enormous mountain of laundry in our room (though we still have plenty of clothes. Why is this?) and lots of random piles that we really need to get rid of. Also, as Dave and I suck at watering, I think we need to throw out most of our dead brown outdoor plants. We'll find time somewhere to get everything done.
I'm more or less out of stuff to do at work again. Well, at least I had one week of work.
posted by
nea at 11:01 AM
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Last night we get back from the B.B. King Blues Festival at 11 at night (we were expecting to be back by 9) and my dad starts opening his birthday presents. My little sister is sitting completely spaced out on the couch. After opening one box, he sticks his arm through and goes, "There's one more present in here, a magic hand! Oooh, a magic hand! Look Leah, it's a magic hand!" Leah looks up and goes, "That's really stupid."
posted by
nea at 8:53 AM
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wFriday, September 20, 2002 |
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So this week I have been working at work instead of being online and blogging. It was nice to feel productive for a change.
Last night I learned how much fun it is to buy live things. Dave and I went out for Vietnamese food in Van Nuys last night, and decided to stop by the Ranch 99 next door. While there, we realized that we meant to be there to buy crabs this week. So, after getting stuff to cook with the crabs and a few other odds and ends, we headed over to the live tank. Dave grabbed the tongs and a bag, and started poking crabs to find a lively one. I found one that was walking around, pointed it out, and Dave picked it up with the tongs. We got it out and in the bag no problem.
The bag started moving around, which made me giggle, but wasn't scary or anything. While I'm making sure that the crab is settled in the bottom of the bag, I hear Dave yelp. Turns out the next crab he poked quickly reached up and try to grab the tongs. This crab was a fighter. We couldn't get him out of the tank, but this Chinese woman next to us finally did. Now the bag was alive. The guy weighing the crab had to be quick, because the bag was ready to take off. Dave and I were both holding the thing well away from our bodies.
Finally we get to the checkout line. Our bag is moving like crazy, and I'm totally giggling at the whole thing. This little girl in front of us in line got scared and hid behind her dad. The best part was when we set the bag of crabs on the conveyer belt. The bag started moving away. You could tell they wanted to walk back to the tank. It was hysterical. On the ride home, Dave and I kept pinching each other, pretending the crabs had gotten out of the trunk and were attacking us. It's like a really sad B-movie, "They came from the fridge to kill them all . . . Killer Stone Crabs!" When we got home, we learned that one of them had pinched its way through four plastic bags, but luckily didn't get out. The crabs were then left to suffer a slow, cold death in our freezer.
On a totally different note, my company is having a beach party today. Yay no work for four hours! Yay free food and parking! Unfortunately, it is hella foggy here in SaMo right now, but I'm thinking it will burn off. I brought my bathing suit along, but the weather will determine whether I change into it. I don't think many people in my department brought suits, which is good, because I don't want to see most of them in that little clothing. Nine-month pregnant woman in bikini, yum! haha I'm also happy because this party kicks off what is going to be a very fun but very crazy weekend for Dave and I. We have one house to clean, one feast, two workouts, two birthdays to celebrate, and some food to cook. Yay fun weekends!
posted by
nea at 9:38 AM
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wTuesday, September 17, 2002 |
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Ahhh, it's so nice when my internet surfing is a break from work instead of the other way around.
posted by
nea at 3:03 PM
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wMonday, September 16, 2002 |
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My feet hurt!
Yesterday Dave and I went to my cousin Meghan's wedding. They had it at the upstairs balcony and the foyer of an auditorium on the Claremont College's property. It was totally pretty and elegant and didn't need much in the way of decoration, which was cool. I got to see my family and show everyone my car, which was also cool. Dave and I thought we had a pretty interesting mix of people at our wedding, with people flying in from all over the country, but we had nothing on Meghan and Aaron. Aaron is from New Zealand, but lived in London for awhile. Many of his New Zealand friends have moved around the world, so they had people flying in from NZ, Australia, Canada, England, Ireland, and a few other countries. It was great to hear the crazy mix of English accents, though the best part was when a bunch of the kiwi guys got together and did a traditional Maori chant. OK, so it is also an AllBlacks cheer, but it was still pretty cool. Dave and I were comparing our wedding to theirs, and decided they definitely had the more fun reception. Their DJ was a lot more in tune with what guests wanted--if people started walking off the floor, he quickly ended the song and switched to something else. There was a lot more young drunk people, too, which made the evening more exciting. It was fun. We ended up having to take off early since both of us had to work in the morning (though I came in late) and my feet were ready to give out.
posted by
nea at 11:41 AM
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wFriday, September 13, 2002 |
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Thoughts on how my old game room has changed.
A few years ago, in the quest for games online, I joined MSN's "Zone." It was an area where you played head to head on a huge number of games. I liked it in that there were always people to play with, and many of them made nice conversation. I became a regular, I had people on my zone friend's list, and I recognized a lot of the screen names in the rooms where I usually played. I slowly gave it up though, mostly because there were a million wierdos mixed in with the good players. I was too good for the beginner Reversi room (Othello out here in the real world) but not quite good enough to compete in the advanced room. So finally I quit.
The other day I was playing on something or other and thought, "What ever happened to the Zone?" I typed in the URL and there it was, updated but basically the same. I couldn't access my old screen name, so I made up a new one and went in. The people in there have totally changed. I have played maybe twenty games and one person has made any conversation. Only one. Any conversation. At all. And they wouldn't even talk to me until after the first game. I say "hi" near the start of every game (I was taught this was good ettiquite) and get no response. I could be playing with robots, and the effect would be the same. It makes me a little sad. I'd almost like to be propositioned for cyber sex in the tournament rooms, at least then I would know some real people are out there.
posted by
nea at 9:55 PM
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Yay, it's Friday! I'm loving these short weeks I've been having. Between summer fridays (which are over, boo), and Labor Day and 9/11 it feels like I haven't had a full week of stuff in a long time. This makes me happy, I hate having to be here all week. Not nearly enough work for that sort of schedule.
Got to go to Olive Garden last night. I like Olive Garden. Yes, I know it's not authentic. I'm not going there for a real Italian experience. I go for hot tasty breadsticks and salad and then an entree that I'm usually too full for. But hey, this means I have eggplant parmigania and spaghetti for lunch today. Yay!
posted by
nea at 8:42 AM
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wTuesday, September 10, 2002 |
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So our DSL, after almost a month of acting strange, is finally fixed. What's a little eerie is that we went through almost the same process with our cable modem in Santa Monica. In both cases, it worked fine for about four months. Then it started kinda randomly switching on and off. After getting sick of it, we called the provider, who promptly sent us a new modem. For our old cable modem, this worked for a couple weeks before the problem continued. For the DSL, this didn't help anything. So then, both times, a person was sent out to look at our lines. It turns out that the signal is set way to strong. The person turns the signal down, and all is fixed. In both cases. How fucked up is that?
posted by
nea at 9:30 AM
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wMonday, September 09, 2002 |
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I think it's that same part of me that wants the tatoo.
posted by
nea at 4:36 PM
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Today's showing of an utter lack of common sense among the public:
The grandmother of an eight-month pregnant woman dies. The woman had false labor last week, has been warned by her doctor to try and keep calm and quiet, and is at work. Do you:
a. Come pick her up and take her home to the family
b. Call her and ask her to come home
c. Call her and tell her "Sorry, your grandmother just passed" causing her to burst into tears and render her unable to drive home to her family
In the meantime, our office hears Shariese bawling and we all get up, thinking she's gone into labor. Her supervisor gets on the cell phone, and basically tells the person off for relaying the news over the phone. I realize that the person on the phone was probably in shock and not thinking but, sheesh, you don't give an eight-month pregnant woman bad news over the phone. argh
posted by
nea at 3:11 PM
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Busy weekend! I don't even know where to start, there was so much going on and so much new stuff to think about and all of it is so crazy.
Went for K-BBQ Friday night. I really like Korean food, and this place we went to is probably what started me on it. The food is tasty (though Dave and I burnt our tastebuds out earlier in the week so it didn't taste spicy enough) and the waitresses are a total trip. They make jokes, act totally silly, dis the guys . . . totally entertaining. There ended up being about 20 people there, a number of whom I rarely get to see, so it was nice to talk and eat meat with everyone. I got to show off my car (I'm just so excited about it) and see Greg's new ride. It's a little odd to be with everyone at once, though, since some people I see like two or three times a week and others I'm impressed if I see three times in a year. These are all people that I used to be with constantly, always partying or having class together or talking on ICQ. Now? Some of them I barely know anymore. We spend so much time catching up and bringing up old memories that there's barely time to make new ones. Still though, I'm happy when stuff like this goes on. Otherwise, it would just be me and Dave hanging out with each other all the time.
Afterwards, in the usual disjointedness of our friends, half of us went to Neil's wine and cheese night while the other half weren't invited. I hate stupid high school drama, but that's what a lot of our group has gotten down to. Whatever, at least I'm part of the "mostly neutral" group. It was a very low-key time. Ted came down, and I spent a good part of the evening chatting with him since I haven't seen him in about six months. Dave got tired and left, but I ended up being out at Neil's until 3:30. To be honest, I was sadly impressed with myself. I haven't been out past two in, well, I don't even know. Probably since before I graduated. I feel so old. But it felt good to be out that late. Walking back to my car I totally got into the vibe of late-night Westwood. Although I'd never want to live there again, I love how there are always people up and awake and that, no matter what hour, there is always something to do.
Saturday I spent most of the day sleeping. Dave was lonely but for once didn't give me a lecture about drinking and being out late. Yay Dave! In the evening we headed over to Hooter's to watch the UCLA game. I could care less about sports, let alone the game, but we had this total need to be social. I'd never been to Hooter's, either, so I saw it as a good oportunity. That place is cool! We had this downstairs area, nicknamed the living room, all to ourselves. There was a comfy couch, a couple tables, a set of bleachers, a bunch of chairs, and this huge TV. Perfect game watching setting. Food wasn't great, but we weren't expecting much. It was a great space for just hanging out and talking, too, as you could just grab your drink and move around in the room. UCLA won, woo hoo!
I know, I know, this is long and rambly. But at least I'm to Sunday?
So one of my coworkers scored free tickets to the Harley-Davidson Open Road Tour concert at the CA Speedway in Fontana. It was an all day event, but we were lazy and didn't want to eat concert food, so we headed out after lunch and got there about 2:30. Unfortunately, 2:30 happened to be the time when George Clinton and P*Funk stopped playing. I thought they'd be later in the day. I was bummed, since that is who I wanted to see, but it was okay. We looked at a bunch of random exhibits and then watched the Doobie Brothers and Journey, two old bands that were before my time but cool anyway. The scene was great--a bunch of old bikers, many of whom had brought their families along, all wearing leather outfits and sporting lots of tatoos. We played a few rounds of "Are those real?", got flashed by a number of old women with sagging breasts, and generally had a good time people watching. It wasn't really my crowd, and is probably the opposite of Dave's, but was fun to be in. We headed out around 7:30, at which time the biker crowd was heading out and the Kid Rock crowd was heading in. Good stuff.
posted by
nea at 10:38 AM
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wThursday, September 05, 2002 |
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So Dave said I needed to go take the D&D character test on myself. It's totally male oriented, but here are my answers anyway:
Str: 7
Int: 11
Wis: 18
Dex: 12
Con: 10
Chr: 15
posted by
nea at 9:32 AM
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wTuesday, September 03, 2002 |
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Well, I had work this morning but now it is all gone. I have nothing left for today or tomorrow. Sometimes I think I should work slow and spread the stuff out, but then I would feel really dumb. bleh.
One of my coworkers went to China Town this weekend and bought a new pot for my lucky bamboo plant. I've had it sitting on my desk since like the second week I worked here. It is now huge. It's just starting to peek over the back wall of my cubicle, so soon enough it will be tall enough for everyone to enjoy. It's nice to have a little piece of life in such an artificial place. The new pot is a white with a real pretty blue glazed design. I need some more rocks though, so that the frog with my plant doesn't have to be submerged under water. Poor little wet froggy. Tonight, to the pet store to pick up aquarium rocks!
posted by
nea at 3:20 PM
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I have a new car, I have a new car . . . yay! I am happy. With a minimal amount of haggling, and a lot of sitting around an overly warm dealership, we got my car and all is said and done. Wrote a huge check for the down payment (you'd think after the wedding I wouldn't be phased by this) but luckily we got to keep some of my savings to put in the house account. Yay house account! I will be putting up pictures of my car (no, it doesn't have a name yet) on our gallery page soon. We also took some parting shots of Pip, which I will also put up.
This new car feels so nice. So much more power than my old car. It's really great. If you want to see all the fancy technical crap (sorry, I'm a girl, I don't really care) you can read it here. Also, I am so damn proud of us on the price. We ended up getting the car for over $2000 under invoice, which is not something you often here about. I guess having connections, in this case the head manager of the entire sales department, is a good thing.
I am also greatly entertained by having a built in CD player. Dave and I went to Virgin last night, since we decided that a new ride needs some new tunes. I actually bought CDs for the first time in probably a year, if not longer. Picked up the new RHCP CD, as well as the one by Michelle Branch. I didn't realize how expensive this whole buying music thing has gotten. I guess I've been spending more time on Morpheus than in stores. Dave picked up two CDs as well. One was classical, and I have no clue what the other was. It was so nice this morning to just stick in a CD rather than listen to the annoying jabber of morning radio. I am going to have to start a more extensive use of our CD burner and the free music out there in internet land.
posted by
nea at 9:25 AM
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wSunday, September 01, 2002 |
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We have picked a car: the 2002 Honda Accord LX with lots of random stuff that I doubt any of you want to hear about. Besides, you can just get rides in it. We are going to buy the car tomorrow morning it looks like. We haven't done our final final haggling yet (friend of a friend at the dealership has today off) but currently we're getting the car for $16,600, which is about $2500 under invoice. Yep, that's right, under. The 2003 cars are coming out Wednesday, so everyone really needs to get rid of their 2002s. Since I plan on driving the car into the ground anyway, I'm not really concerned that the car is already a year old. This is all very exciting for me--I've never had anything close to a new car before. I've never had car payments before, which is going to suck a little, but we budgeted for them so no big deal.
We went swimming for a bit today, but made sure to only stay out there about twenty minutes cuz it's like 105 degrees out here. Damn burning hot valley. Pool felt great though. Thanks to my lovely sunburn last weekend, my tan is looking pretty nice right about now. I like summer time. Feels so nice to just be outside.
posted by
nea at 3:18 PM
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