hello friends

Everybody at work got free pie at 1:59 today. :D :D :D :D

[An exchange while we watch an episode of Sesame Street where The Sound Of Music is on Monsterpiece Theater]

[17:42:02] emsworth: The hill is alive!
[17:42:03] emsworth: RUN!
[17:42:06] The Jennybork: RUN FOR THE
[17:42:07] The Jennybork: UM
[17:42:08] The Jennybork: CRUD
[17:42:12] emsworth: THE VALLEYS
[17:42:14] The Jennybork: YES
[17:42:15] The Jennybork: THE VALLEYS


It amused me.

So mecha recently bought volume 3 of Planetary, and so I was rereading our old Planetary TPBs in preparation. And then I mentioned Planetary to someone and then got the idea to scan some of it.

This is the original eight-page "preview" story. The rest only gets better from here. Join me, won't you, as we follow the adventures of the Archaeologists of the Impossible hard at work tracking down the world's secret history!

PS what Ellis does with Superman, Green Lantern and Wonder Woman is COMPLETELY AWESOME. But you'll have to look elsewhere for that bit. ("Magic and Loss", in book 2.)

( Scans here. )

Yesterday mechamom and Quentin came down to take me grocery shopping and bring me some stuff that was up at their place in Indy. Turns out that there was a gun show in town, though, and since Quentin was driving, that means we wound up driving around a little until we found the fairgrounds where said gun show was being held. It was a fascinating experience to follow Quentin around and listen as he extolled the virtues of various firearms, many of which I had no idea how he could ever tell them apart. For a while I followed mechamom around too but she just looked at some crocheted baby clothes and stuff that were over to one side, which was boring. I bought genuine gun show beef jerky! It is branded "Boone's Choice" and the inkjet-printed label has a picture of some guy presumably pretending to be Boone. Yum beef jerky.

I only saw one guy with Confederate flag merchandise. That was something, anyway. There was one vendor who apparently felt the need to warn me and mechamom to be careful around his politically incorrect merchandise, I guess because our delicate female sensibilities might be overwhelmed by the sight of bumper stickers reading "I LOVE My Country / I FEAR My Government", but eh.

At another table there were little stickers reading "PROTECT YOUR COUNTRY -- BUY A GUN". I, uh. I don't think purchasing a firearm actually increases the protection level of this country in any way, fellas. By your logic, every time someone buys a pistol with the sole intention of armed robbery, he is still somehow making the country safer because, hey, he bought a small machine that was designed expressly to kill. What a patriot!

I have nothing against gun ownership. But you're not providing a public service by owning them, and you need to reexamine your priorities if an instrument of death seems the best way to "protect" your family. Guns are kind of neat; it is fun to take them to a shooting range or an isolated bit of land and blast at a target (or in my case the ground). Just please stop worshipping them, k? K.

As the three of us were driving back to town proper from the fairgrounds, Quentin joked that we should go to the Army/Navy store and then a strip club, thus completing the trifecta of turning me into the son he never had. Oddly enough mechamom was not interested in such a plan! Man what is with chicks anyway, they don't know how to have fun. Or something.

Eventually we were done grocery-getting, and the mechaparentals bid me good day and left. Then I took my new gloves that I mentioned in passing a few days back, and the needle and thread that mechamom provided me with since I can't find my own needles anywhere, and I stitched off the fingers that Quentin cut off for me. I don't think they were going to unravel any more than the little bit they already had -- certainly the pair he did up for himself some time ago is holding up -- but I was paranoid. So now I have Army-style wool gloves, with the thumb and first two fingers cut off at the tips, and the raw ends stitched up neatly. Hooray for dexterity.

That more or less was Saturday.

My day, more or less chronologically.

This morning the neighbors awoke me by slamming kitchen drawers open and shut, as they often do. Their kitchen is on the other side of an all-too-thin wall from my bedroom, you see. And they really seem to hate those drawers. So they woke me up, and I drifted off into more broken sleep, and then at some point looked at my alarm clock and it was almost 6 AM. So they were probably slamming those drawers at closer to 5. Thanks, guys. I hate you and wish you would move out and be replaced by a family of narcoleptic mimes.

I kept almost breaking into tears during my first class, which is obviously not an acceptable turn of events. While walking to the bus stop and waiting for the bus I kept wondering whether I should try a walk-in counseling session or whether I should try to hold out for the appointment I made for next Friday; finally the bus decided for me, by being one of the "limited" ones that only go to the library and then make everyone get off. The health center is just across both the streets from the library. So off I went, across the streets and up to the fourth floor, and managed to get in with a counselor after a minimal wait.

Since it was just a walk-in we didn't really have the time to go very in-depth (though I still managed to go overtime, but eh). Still, I talked some to a person and left feeling better, so that's something. I also canceled the appointment with the other person, and scheduled another oen with the woman I saw today, on Monday. I don't know how long I'll keep seeing her, but I guess "as long as it helps" is a good rubrick for now.

When I asked, she said that the very vague cut-off line between "still standard grieving" and "gone on into just plain depression" is about a year. It's also a total garbage number, because everybody is different, but. It is fucking terrifying feeling like this and having no idea when you might expect it to start getting better. It is a little easier having a number in front of you. A year. It is something solid. I can work with that.

After checking out of the health center I came home, had barely enough time to get a shower and grab some food, and had to go back to campus again. Sat and wrote a cheesy little C# program in lab, waited way too long for the bus to show up, came home again. Sat at the computer and talked to silly people for a while, including introducing someone to the wonders of Silent Garfield; also secured dinner for myself. Dinner was stuffing and canned green beans, which was the closest thing I had to fresh greens which is what I am desperately craving right now. Only the beans A) tasted like metal and B) crunched in a manner similar to getting a bit of bone in with your shredded/ground meat product. Um. Yeah, down the disposal with that, then. Canned green beans are not supposed to crunch. They just aren't. Fresh ones, sure, with that veggie-type crunch. But not canned ones and not like this. Yick.

I should go to bed right about now, but instead I am typing a post while listening to the gangsta rap portion of the GTA:SA soundtrack. I really can't go without listening to music because it helps keep my brain busy, but at the same time like 90% of my music collection is currently depressing in some way (genuinely depressing songs and/or songs of lost love; songs of non-lost love; bands I learned of through Chris; bands I enjoyed the music of with Chris; bands whose music I at any point associated with Chris in some way; &c). Radio Los Santos, though, is for some reason "safe" as it were. So is the Silence Of The Lambs musical, but that's only about 20 minutes long so it gets real old real fast if you leave it going.

EXCITEMENT ABOUNDS.

I actually care enough to change the userpic on the entry for once. Look, a cute vole. When I was making this userpic I remember thinking that Chris would like it. You know what? I bet he would. Voles are just that awesome. And cute.

From AIM a little while ago:
[01:48:52] The Jennybork: YOU
[01:48:54] The Jennybork: ENTERTAIN ME
[01:49:00] [16-year-old e-friend]: ALRIGHT
[01:49:03] [16-year-old e-friend]: -strips-
[01:49:12] [16-year-old e-friend]: HOW IS THAT?
[01:49:15] The Jennybork: Um. I think you just made me a criminal.

My brain is getting slowly used to the idea that my time with Chris is a thing of the past, that "never again" really DOES mean "no, seriously, NEVER EVER AGAIN". It is kind of terrifying. I guess it's necessary so I can heal and get on with my life and whatever else, but it's still kind of terrifying. Jenny, comfortably in a relationship and lookin' forward to gettin' married someday, is gone. Now there is only Zuuluh er I mean Jenny who is livin' the single life and not enjoying it at all. Also Zuul NO DAMMIT NO ZUUL AND I AM STILL NOT THE GATEKEEPER¹

I thought Valentine's day was stupid and pointless last year, and the year before, and the year before, and so on. This year I am probably going to be extra-emo about its stupidness to boot, because I am all alone and so on. Blarg. It is probably a good sign that I am terribly annoyed by all the emo. It means I am not entirely soaking in it anymore.

On Saturday I will be falling off the Internet for a while. Someone will be coming down here to get me and take me back up to Indy, either to mechamom's or mechasister's. I don't know how long I'll be gone; certainly at least until the 2nd of January, and maybe not for a few days after that. I'll have my cell so I can make phoneposts if I need to, though, and those of you that know the number, if for some reason you feel that you cannot go a second longer without getting my unique perspective on life, feel free to call.

Sean, you can't have the number. I'm just sayin' before you ask. So don't bother. MAYBE IF YOU WERE NOT SUCH A JERK THINGS WOULD BE DIFFERENT; FEEL FREE TO TAKE THAT TRIP TO HELL NOW

I finally updated my comics link list after like two months of not getting around to it. Although I'm pretty sure that I left something off, even if I can't remember what it was. All of those comics are good, and deserve your eyeballs.

I had chicken barbecue pizza for dinner tonight. I ordered it online and then like an hour and twenty minutes later Mad Mushroom FINALLY called and said that they had just gotten the fax in, but I told them I still wanted it, 'cause I did. When I eventually got it, I ate half of it all at once. Pizza tastes even more delicious when you've been starvin' for three hours! Especially when it is just about the best chicken barbecue pizza you can get in all of Bloomington, a town well-known for its multifarious pizzarias.

Whipped out We Love Katamari today, and managed to finally get past Bright on the firefly stage. Good stuff. I am debating whether to give GTA:SA another try; I'm currently stuck on three different mission strands, but even if I can't pass any missions, I can still run around San Andreas stealin' cars, cappin' fools, and pimpin' hos. Technology betters all our lives!

That's about it, I think.

1. Mainly referring to the three-parter linked here. Man, what is it with me and weird little pagey thingies involving mythical evilish creatures.²
2. See, 'cause I also did this in August 2004.

I like cheese.

Dear electricity:

What the hell, what is with the going out for hours. You suck. On the other hand, <3 my UPS. I got to sit here playing City of Heroes in an electricity-less apartment. ...for about three minutes and then it was obvious the power wasn't coming back so I had to shut down. But.

We took possession of the new apartment today! We also drove down Kirkwood, which is a major location of eateries in Bloomington, to see what was still there. Mecha's favorite taco place is gone, and possibly also the middle eastern place where we used to get schawarmas or however you spell them. I hope it's still there, but if it is we both missed it. And I had my first Carnegie Classic in two years! That is the corned beef/pastrami sammich at Dagwood's. It is the world's best sandwich. Seriously. YUM.

This paragraph is mainly for me, but maybe someone else cares or is just extremely bored. I just need to note down somewhere the things that we want to have maintenance look at based on what we saw today: the doorstopper thing behind the front door doesn't work, which means now there's a little dent in the wall; the kitchen light has like a million dead bugs on top of the glass sheet; there's water damage in a closet and on the living room ceiling (minus a billion points for me for not noticing this before we signed the lease); and the garbage disposal won't turn on. Oh, and mecha's room's miniblinds don't close. Essentially it is four nonproblems that it's just their job to fix, and a possible problem re: the water damage.

I've decided that the reason this apartment was so conveniently vacant is because it's built on an ancient Indian burial ground. The previous tenants finally got tired of the ghost of Chief Coughing Bear waking them up in the middle of the night asking them to make him a snack.

[00:42:05] d**************u: I know what kage, ho, kaze, and a bunch of other words mean.
[...]
[00:46:19] The Jennybork: I KNOW WHAT 'HO' MEANS TOO
[00:46:24] d**************u: What?
[00:46:41] The Jennybork: IT'S THE THING THE PIMP SMACKS AROUND
[00:46:46] The Jennybork: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
[00:46:51] d**************u: No.
[00:46:54] d**************u: It means 'fire'.
[00:47:04] The Jennybork: SET HER ON FIRE IF YOU REALLY WANT I GUESS
[00:47:09] The Jennybork: THAT'S FIFTY BUCKS EXTRA THOUGH
[00:47:13] The Jennybork: Ohh, I'm going to hell.

I also got to reference this, which is seriously one of the best xkcd comics ever. I love you, Randall Munroe. Have my non-raptor babies.

Finally, a letter.

Dear Approximately Half Of Virginia:

What the fuck. No, seriously, WHAT THE FUCK.

If there were any justice in the world, tomorrow you would all wake up with deer heads stuffed in your mailboxes. Every single one.

Hate,
Jenny.

That's about it.

So. Um.

I am reading World War Z by Max Brooks, the same guy who wrote the Zombie Survival Guide. It's good. A series of "oral accounts" of fictional survivors of the great worldwide zombie outbreak. I'm not even a quarter in yet and already he's brought up all sorts of interesting things that probably WOULD happen in a zombie plague scenario, but that I never even imagined myself (even though I think more about zombies than is probably healthy). Like: what happens to the organ transplant business?

I am also playing City of Heroes (on Victory, if anyone out there is still playing a MMO that isn't World of Warcraft). I got a free two-week acount to mess around in it a bit with a friend, and then mecha got his own free account, and the two of us realized that we both liked it a lot. So for a little while, anyway, we're going to keep playing. Went out and bought two copies of the Good Versus Evil edition and everything. Of course, we had to hit SEVEN STORES before FINALLY finding them in stock at WAL*MART of all places. But.

I am also also in love with this video, which is a pairs skating adaptation of the Million Ways dance. I used to love watching figure skating when I was younger, and then it started getting really boring because really all the skaters do basically the same thing over and over again, with a few exceptions. These two have made it interesting again, at least for the span of four minutes.

I am also also also generally feeling a bit better about stuff than I was a month or two ago. Part of this is because we are getting a handle on the whole going-back-to-school thing. We should be getting our financial aid packages in soon, and there should be enough money to survive on; we'll be getting our old bursar bills paid soon and then we should be able to actually register for classes; and, perhaps nicest of all, we've secured what looks to be a very clean and quiet two-bedroom two-bath apartment that is on a bus route to campus and is affordable. Probably the last one of those left in Bloomington. Ours now, suckas!

Oh, and I've also started taking a daily vitamin, which is just a good idea anyway, plus if I was sad and listless because of any deficiencies then not so much any more. "Deficiencies" does not look like a real word. Maybe I spelled it wrong.

So that's about it until the next time I post, which will probably be in, like, five years. Or not. Either way.

PS: Mike's Halloween costume fills my heart with malicious glee. (He is the guy in the first three pictures!)

I was awake for 26 hours straight yesterday, and then I slept four hours last night! Boy, being too poor to afford the drugs you need to function normally is AWESOME. Woo 'Merica! Keep the health care costs up and the health statistics down! Single-payer government insurance, and the attendant rise in public health and longevity, are for COMMIES.

I just got myself a lovely breakfast consisting of a tiny box of cereal and a glass of root beer (because that is what I've decided it means), when I happened to glance at the said tiny box.

It was a box of Honey Nut Cheerios. A good enough cereal, and better than the raisin bran that was the other tiny box. And I'm sure we're pretty much all familiar with the little cartoon bee that has been their mascot for at least a couple decades, but I'll refresh your collective memory anyway: here is the bee on the box.



A happy, smiling cartoon bee.

Until you look closer.



That is not an expression of happiness. That is an agonized rictus most often associated with the realization that one's existence is utterly meaningness and devoid of purpose or joy.



Chilling.


While I'm making a picture post, here, have a bottle of dishwashing liquid.



Because as we all know, the default state of the universe is "ultra".