Had to go visit the library at SJSU yesterday so as long as I was down there I moseyed over to the Japanese bookstore where I stocked up on clear plastic folders. You can never have enough of these things. Hard to see in the photo, but this brand describes itself as a "praiseworthy clear holder in four clear colors." Praiseworthy indeed.

I also perused their selection of craft books. Japanese craft books are all the rage right now among hip crafty types, and they are lovely. For the most part language isn't a problem since everything is illustrated with either color photos or beautifully clear illustrations. I found this great book on all kinds of neat things to do with wire so hopefully I can start working through all the wire stuff Birgit gave me a couple years ago that's just been sitting around.

Current reading: Made a second attempt at Life of Pi, but even though it's wonderfully written I just can't get into it. Instead I started on my fourth Jonathan Carroll of the past two weeks, Kissing the Beehive.

Surprises just keep coming. This week I was not really listening to NPR in the car when I suddenly heard the name Tammy Duckworth. Turns out one of my best friends from elementary school in Jakarta is running for Congress in Illinois. She's also an Iraq War vet who lost both legs when a grenade hit her Blackhawk helicopter. I'm so stunned and proud that words fail me.

The pirate party came off fairly successfully with only a few moments of panic (like not having passwords to log on to the systems and load the software until 30 minutes before the event was supposed to start), and Dogwatch was the hit of the evening. Very, very nice guys... for a bunch of pirates, that is.

Earlier in the week I went out on the town with Frogger. We mostly just party-hopped.

I have a whole new appreciation for the costumed character scene. The Frogger suit has no viewport except a small screen in the chin that lets you look straight down at your big webbed feet, so you're essentially blind. The poor actor barely fit as it was, and two of us had to maintain a death grip on his elbows while we moved him from place to place saying, "Left left left... now forward... a little to the right. Stop!" People really got a kick out it though (can't stop the puns), and everyone wanted to get a photo with Frogger.

Have an assignment due tomorrow for Digitization and I'm in full work-avoidance mode. Already spent way too much time fooling around with my Netflix queue, and now updating the blog for no good reason. Doesn't help that I'm exhausted, having been at work since 7 this morning dealing with last-minute inanity surrounding the Game Developers Conference in San Jose next week.

Here's the bracelet I made the other night while watching Grizzly Man. I needed something that would work with all the brown and lavender I suddenly have in my wardrobe. Lord knows why I strung it on elastic string and then gave it a clasp anyway. That's the great thing about making your own jewelry: if you don't like it or get tired of it you can just take it apart and make something else.

Current reading (other than endless articles on digitizing photos correctly): done with the short story and Western phase (Rick Bass, Twain, Roald Dahl) and now into The Marriage of Sticks by Jonathan Carroll. About halfway through it and riveted so far. Stayed reading up a good 45 minutes later than I should have last night. Chris, I should be done with it by the time you're down here for the APE next month.

Often when we're hanging out at Cathy and Tim's, Harley likes to sit on the couch and be a part of things. This was Sunday when Cathy and I were watching All My Children. (Taken with the Sidekick.)

The best way to do Disneyland is to go when they're forecasting torrential rain that never really happens. Everyone stayed away so we only had to stand in lines for a few minutes and didn't bother FastPassing anything. The rain held off until about 3.00 when we were on the train anyway and getting ready to leave, but it was bloody cold all day. Ran into Maynard working the door of the 50th anniversary exhibit at the Lincoln theater. The only thing we missed out on was Pirates which is down. Supposedly they are adding Jack Sparrow.

A very nice weekend (thank you, Cathy), but now I am gravely behind on the reading and benchmarking assignment for my digitization seminar while also scrambling around to take care of last minute details for this accursed pirate event at GDC next week.

This week has been just full of freaking weird news. First the cheerleader who fell on her head and kept cheering as they carried her out on the stretcher (so bizarre on many levels), and now this furry blond lobster thing. AP describes it as being "about the size of a salad plate." When did salad plates become a standard of measurement for sea creatures?

New reason to loathe the Sidekick: when lying on the front seat of the car it interferes with my FM modulator (not to be confused with the illudium Q36 explosive space modulator, which would take care of the Sidekick right quick).

When Mike said a few weeks ago that he was going to get me a sidekick, I was hoping he meant an energetic young lad who looked good in tights and a mask. No such luck. The Sidekick was on my desk when I got in this morning and I hate it already. It makes odd noises and startles me by buzzing randomly, and because T-Mobile coverage is notoriously bad around here, it only works sporadically.

I made my annual pilgrimage to Best Buy to get Turbo Tax (Premier Edition--we special selfly employed folks get to shell out more for our software in addition to mailing four checks on April 15) the other day. I'm hoping it will crawl out of the bag, install itself on the computer, gather my 1099s, locate the correct quarterly payments spreadsheet, and just deal with it all. So far nothing, but I haven't given up hope. Maybe the Sidekick will prod it along. It seems like the nasty, nagging type.

Another Sunday, another slog through a cataloging exercise. I think I'll refer to the class as "cataslogging" from now on. This stuff is highly unintuitive. Today I learned about syndetic structures, known to normal people as "search under" or "see also" references. Kill me now.
Actually, when I said the other day that everything right now seems wrong, I meant everything except school. I am loving school and doing extemely well (she said modestly), in spite of the occasional headache-inducing classes like Cataslogging and Information Retrieval. Trouble is I've been so focused on the getting through school part that I've been avoiding thinking too much about the after school part. At the end of this semester I'll only have 12 units to go--9 plus the culminating. That's only 3 classes, or 2 classes and an internship.

Time to think a little harder about the future.

But not today.

Kinda tilty yesterday and this morning, not sure why. Nachos Bell Grande for lunch yesterday probably didn't help any, at a whopping 1,500 mg of sodium. Sudafed seems to have taken care of it, at least for the time being. The last thing I need right now is vertigo.

And I really, really wish this cough would go away.

Isis has started wandering into empty rooms and letting out this sort of mournful yowl--I think she's calling Sparkle. It's just pitiful. I got her a little chipmunk toy that makes crackly noises and is stuffed with catnip. She's currently trying to disembowel it.

Somebody stop me from buying this game. I do NOT need another board game that I a) don't have time to play, b) need to teach other people, c) have to bully them into playing, and d) has fiddly bits. Right? Right? Help!

I have to plug two sites run by really nice people who put out some great, unusual, and high quality products. AntiSally at the Goth Rosary sells a bunch of stuff but her fragrance line is pure genius. I've been experimenting with the samples in my crafts room (where I also workout) and am finding that the Crypt scent really adds something to my yoga, especially savasana :)

The other one-woman company worth supporting is Auntie Rhubarb. Michele makes some lovely products that smell just as described (how the hell do you bottle something that smells exactly like lemon birthday cake?), and are reasonably priced to boot.

In a world where 99% of American females smell like the top 3 lines from Bath & Body Works, it's great to see people doing something fun and different.