It's raining. I think that means that winter has started? I love the Californian weather, but there are still some things I don't understand about it. Like, how do the leaves know that it's time to change color? I mean, I was taught that trees need a good blast of cold to bring out the really brilliant colors (which is why autumn in Florida is just dull brown). But here we're still getting days in the 70s and yet there are gorgeous reds and oranges in the foliage.

Hm. Maybe it's dry weather that the trees want instead? That's certainly something we have in abundance here over the summer.

I can feel that this is not one of my more scintillating entries (such as they ever are). Sorry. But if I'm forcing myself to write every day, there's going to be some really lame ones in here. I could add, for example, that perhaps the most exciting thing that happened today was that I took advantage of Mervyn's going out of business to obtain a fancy memory foam pillow for 30% off. I'm going to sleep well tonight!

Yeah, I'm sorry. As always, let's hope for a better tomorrow.

So, yeah, a long weekend with too little sleep, then four days of work and now I've got a moderate cold and despite the doses of DayQuil and albuterol (that's to ease the coughing) I'm feeling pretty shitty. But I've got work tomorrow and I hate letting a show recap get to its one-week anniversary, so I'm gonna give this a try. I'm thinking the happy memories will distract me from my ills. ( Golden Gate...Divisadero...Turk...Fillmore! )

It was really an excellent weekend, not just for the shows but for seeing old friends and meeting new ones! Maybe next time I'll get to go out East instead. In the meantime, I have memories and pictures. k1cup, hope you had a good trip home!

I think this one is going to be shorter than usual, partly because it's so very much after the fact, and partly because the show itself was so short. ( But let's see how it goes. )

Wow, that report was really short. That's got to be a record of some kind. And here are the photos and stuff. Can't wait until September!

hobbitgrrl and I had been planning to go to the free TMBG concert in St Louis yesterday, but after monitoring the weather reports and seeing forecasts in the 20s with possible snow, and considering this was an outdoor show, we finally, though not without regret, came to the conclusion that this trip would be too crazy even for us. I know, right? Too crazy for us? Who knew that was possible? However, after reading the comments of some people who did go, I think we made a wise decision. There will always be another show, and I'll enjoy the next one much more not having lost any of my appendages to frostbite.

Seriously. An outdoor show in the midwest in February? Who thought that was a good idea?

So on Saturday instead of taking that road trip to hypothermia I stayed in town and went to help out at a quizbowl tournament, meaning I was surrounded by nerds of an entirely different sort. Of course the real fun came at the post-tournament gathering for NBA Jam and beverages, where the highlights were leahrosmerta's bullying of the first-years; myamphigory's demonstration of the proper usage and pronunciation of the word "yinz"; and, most of all, the smaller Seth's repeated, increasingly maudlin declarations of how horribly he misses Kannan. They have, after all, had an ocean between them for the entire school year. But then, who doesn't miss him? The answer, as was well established last night, is "nobody."

And it's now the Year of the Pig—that wonderful, magical animal. So

to everyone!

Well, I'm glad I didn't have class today. I think my plan of staying inside all day was wise—horizontal snow really isn't one of my favorite kinds of weather.

Heh, I am amused that there are posts by two different people on my friends page with the title "when it rains it snows," but only one of them is actually about snow.

Anyway, there has been a real dearth of cat pictures in here of late, so I must try to rectify the situation. ( Check out Wallace behaving badly. )

Keep warm, everybody!

Damn, it's cold out there. I'm feeling nostalgiac for the days when the highs were in the 20s. The worst part was how my eyelids kept trying to freeze together while I was walking to campus today. Note to self: stop blinking so much.

Very sad event last night: the guy we've been leeching internet from for the past year or so finally got wise and password-protected his wireless network, so it looks like at long last we're gonna have to suck it up and pay for internet. We'll probably just go with AT&T since we already have phone service from them, but if any Chicago locals would like to share advice or comments on them or any other providers, I'd certainly appreciate it. The important thing is that they not require a long-term contract, since we will likely be moving in July and won't want to pay early termination fees. Who knows, we might end up living in Mountain View where, I hear, they have free wireless for everyone. It's a Google Utopia out there.

Wow, I sure got snowed on this morning. But now I'm here in this cubicle to do my extra teaching hours and 3 (of 6 scheduled at this writing) students have already missed their appointments, so I'd say the workload is pretty sweet so far. I'm getting paid to write in my journal! I'm living the dream of so many bloggers.

On to the important stuff: a poll. Now that we've had a couple new episodes of Veronica Mars, who's the for now still-MIA character from previous seasons that you're most anxious to see back on the show?

Poll #843186 a poll about television
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4

whom do you miss most so far?

Okay, we made it back from the zoo show without being either completely roasted or soaked, so based on that alone the day was a success. Really we did have a fine time overall. Here are some pictures and videos. I realized that all of the videos are missing bits from the beginning (I guess my trigger finger's not quick enough) but I think they will do.

There's already a pretty exhaustive banter summary on the wiki so I'll try not to repeat too much of that. And hobbitgrrl has all the really exciting stories. :P But ( read on to find out all about our day at the zoo. )

And my neck still hurts. But it was certainly a most excellent time. Hope we get to do it again soon!

Rargh. Yesterday we got in the car planning to go out for lunch and errands, and were unable to start it, because the damn key wouldn't turn in the ignition. I'd been having problems for the past few days getting it to turn, but it wasn't until now that it completely quit working. I always forget how much we take the car for granted until we can't use it. But we had it towed to the shop and they're promising to have it fixed by this afternoon, so things could be worse. I ended up ordering the spices I wanted from Penzeys instead of our going to the store as originally planned.

Oh, also, my iMac at work died and had to be taken away for repair. (They think it's the power supply, nothing fatal inside, but don't know for sure yet.) So in a way this is nice because that means I don't have to go to work because I have nothing I can work on, but on the other hand I'm not earning any money and...my iMac is dead! Very sad.

In happier news, before everything in my world started breaking, I had a relaxing weekend and got to spend some time with zimbra1006. As usual, not enough, but next year, when I've moved to California... :P

While she was here she also helped me pick out the buttons for this cardigan I've been working on, ( which I will now tell you all about in great detail, with 4 photos. )

My brain is still kind of melted from the heat and the rock, so I hope you'll forgive me for not being quite so detailed as usual. Oh, who am I kidding, I know really you're thankful for the change.

( This is the TMBG part. )

( And this is about the rest of the night, including Flaming Lips. )

Overall, a satisfactory day. What's funny about it is that we were annoyed that the festival organization sucked so much, but it's pretty obvious that if the organization had been better, our experience would almost certainly have been worse. So I'll just be thankful that things worked out as they did.

Here are the photos and videos. I apologize for the wobbliness of the videos; I rested the camera on the barrier, but I guess I was unconsciously dancing along the whole time, making them a bit shaky. It's not like Lars von Trier seasickness-inducing camera work, though.

Now let's hope the weather for the zoo show will be nicer than this...