hello friends

Before mecha bugs me about it anymore, I guess I should do some retroactive posting.

Two Saturdays ago, mecha and Sarah (his sister) and Ted (her husband) came down from Indy and we went to a "Chocolate Fest". Chocolate was had by all, except Ted because for some sick reason he does not like it. Since we got there in the last 20 minutes before everyone closed up and went home, we got a lot of stuff free that we would have otherwise have had to pay for. Also, there had been a dessert contest and for most of the time the winners were display only, but there at the end they were cutting up the cake and passing out the cookies, so we got award-winning chocolatey tasties, too. The cake was pretty meh but the cookies were OH WOW.

It was fun. I got to go out in public and pretend to be a normal person who is not currently going through a life-changing traumatic event.

One Saturday ago, i.e. day before yesterday, nidoking came over, supposedly for snow-based schenanigans. Only since he is apparently not quite insane enough to get roped into trying to build things out of dry snow in practically-single-digit-degree weather, we mainly wound up watching DVDs and going out to eat. It was fun. I got to go out in public &c., plus I got to watch Matt play FF12. I like watching people play video games, and either peppering them with questions about the game or mocking their performance. Or both.

Today I had an advising appointment, then a counseling appointment, and then a class.

At ye olde advisor's, I learned some good things about my next few semesters, including the fact that theoretically I could graduate in spring 2008. I won't, of course; scheduling never does behave, and there'll be two classes that I need that are both at the same time, or something. But after this semester I'm basically done with prerequisites and am just left to clean up the stragglers in terms of credits achieved.

Also I learned that my advisor does a local-access late-night monster-movie cable show thing, and goes regularly to a horror con where he recently had his picture taken with Tom Savini. HOW AWESOME IS THAT. I didn't notice it until he pointed it out to me, but he even has sort of a plaque thing that is made up to look like a wooden sign on which is painted "Welcome to Camp Crystal Lake". Ha ha. My advisor is cooler than your advisor.

At ye olde health center, I basically spent an hour talking about nothing much. I am to the point where I can't seem to actually gather my thoughts enough to talk about them when the time comes. It's frustrating, but I guess it is a good sign that the badness is not always first and foremost on my mind. Chris is dead, the life I wanted is irretrievably out of my reach, and I will have to spend all the rest of my days trying to make something good out of the "second best" that I have left. But at least I'm to the point where I don't start crying every time I let my mind go idle. It's moving more towards the slow-boiling quiet sort of utter sorrow.

At ye olde class, we basically got extra credit just for showing up, for some reason I'm not entirely sure of. But hey, extra credit. Yes please.

Also, on the way to class I had to go through the union, and so while I was there I picked up a new copy of Windows XP for my upcoming computer upgrade festivities. It cost ten dollars. Sometimes being an IU student is pretty awesome.

Now time to get something to eat and go grocery shopping I guess. Hopefully mecha will not buy more Honest Tea given that there are already like a billion bottles in the fridge. ...okay, so more like 25 or 30. BUT STILL.

I am almost out of gun show beef jerky. Sad.

I am going to see mecha in about an hour, for the first time in weeks. He isn't coming home for realz yet, but mechamom needed to come take me to get groceries and he is coming along to visit.

I am absolutely enamored with this. Truly the most stirring musical performance ever given by man or Muppet. Watch it, I beg of you. Two minutes of awesome.

I am still broken and lost, though I cry little now except at bedtime. Knowledge of another lonely day passed and a seemingly-endless string of similar days yet to go can do that to a person, I suppose.

I am surviving, even though every second I do so takes me further from the time when the man I love was still alive.

That about sums it up, I suppose.

I have been too lazy to post the last few days, so I'm going to make a couple catchup posts in quick succession to hit the highlights, so to speak. This one is about a phone conversation I had with mecha on um Thursday I think. I will copy-paste from IM.

[19:58:16] The Jennybork: I was telling him about the assignment I'm going to have in one class, where we'll be split into groups and each group has to write an interface to do something with "phidgets", which are things like LEDs and motion sensors on little circuit boards that plug into computers via USB.
[...]
[19:59:11] The Jennybork: He decided that what my group should do with the phidgets is make a system whereby a program running on his computer monitors his work in, say, a word processing program, decides when he has been working hard enough to deserve a break,a nd then sends a signal via phidget to light up an LED...
[19:59:36] The Jennybork: The LED will signal a Lego Mindstorms robot to trundle over to a mini-fridge and signal another Lego Mindstorms robot...
[19:59:55] The Jennybork: The second one will open the fridge, give pie to the first one, and close the fridge. The first pie-bot will bring the pie to him at his desk.
[20:00:03] The Jennybork: He calls it PieNet.
[20:00:14] emsworth: Errr. Wow/
[20:00:18] The Jennybork: Apparently if I do not help build it then PieNet will, from the future, send back a Piemanator to kill me.
[20:00:20] The Jennybork: Yeah, wow is right.
[20:00:20] emsworth: Could that actually work?
[20:00:25] The Jennybork: Actually, possibly.
[20:00:27] emsworth: What size pie is he thinking of?
[20:00:41] The Jennybork: A slice, on a paper plate, plastic-wrapped with a plastic fork in it, so there's no dishes to take back.
[20:00:50] emsworth: And not all that heavy.
[20:00:55] The Jennybork: Yeah.
[20:01:06] The Jennybork: He is bizarrely insistent that my group has to build PieNet for him.
[20:01:13] emsworth: Wow.
[20:01:15] The Jennybork: Or else he will murder them.
[20:01:26] emsworth: And he's not on medication?

The people I already told via IM about this said the following:

[20:02:34] emsworth: Tell him he blew my mind.

[20:12:50] m************: is he on any medication that might be affecting his mental capabilities?

[20:21:49] d***************: YES
[20:21:50] d***************: PIE
[20:21:54] d***************: FROM A ROBOT

Let me tell you it is pretty peculiar to have a phone conversation where for almost an hour someone is waxing enthusiastic about a system whereby robots bring him pie before he even consciously realizes that he needs it.

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.

Note to mecha: write down the lyrics to your song "We Love Killing Romulans (We'll Settle For Anyone Else)".

Note to everyone else: mecha is a FREAK.

Oh, awesome. This is so hilarious.

Apparently some friends of Sarah's and/or Ted's read my recent journal entry mentioning the whole dog thing? And I guess they weren't happy with what I said, and so they told Sarah and/or Ted about it? And Sarah and/or Ted told mechamom about it? (I am a bit unclear on just who told whom what, since I'm getting all this nth hand from mecha)

Mechamom just called here, asked to speak to mecha, and laid into him over the phone about how Sarah and/or Ted's friends read bad things about them "on our website" (i.e. Four Panels) "on the 12th" (the entirety of the newspost for the 12th being "BOOBIES Also, robots").

LOLLERZ.

Dear Sarah and/or Ted's friends, who I guess are reading this: I'm sorry I said things you don't like in my personal journal! OMG NOEZ I AM SO TEH EVIL.

Dear Sarah and/or Ted: If you have a problem with ME, you can feel free to talk to ME about it. Just a thought.

Dear mechamom: Well, actually, aside from jumping down mecha's throat, this isn't really your fault/fight/whatever, I guess. I'm the one who does all the fp-site-updating, so if you should be upset with anyone, it would be me, but I don't expect you to know that offhand.

I invite comments from all parties concerned. Is there some fact I overlooked that caused me to be too harsh towards Sarah and Ted? Enlighten me! Did I get something totally wrong? Set me straight! Are you pissed at me in general? Post your ire! Just stop being a fucking third-grader-style tattletale, already. Jesus.

Bush says he tried to avoid war "to the max".

Round here, yo? We call DAT shit DIPLOMAXIC.

Represent.

Predictions, courtesy of mecha: Bush starts wearing bling to events; has hydraulics installed on fighter jet so it can bounce to the phat beats of the latest single from D12, "Mission Accomplished, Bitches".

So vfc's post got me thinkin'.

See, mechamom has this thing. Whenever anybody mentions what's happened to New Orleans, she tells them to quit making a big deal of it, that these things happen, look at what Hugo did to Charleston back in '89. It's just a natural disaster and reflects not at all on our government. Recovery is going to take time. Again, see Charleston.

It never seems to matter how many numbers and figures and facts mecha mentions, she always falls back on her "look it happens it is nothing new Hugo hit so much harder now let's stop talking about it" defense. But I figured I'd look up some numbers anyway, because hey, I was curious. What do I know from something that happened when I was 8? Back then I was too busy watching Thundercats and playing with My Little Ponies to care.

So according to ten minutes of Googling, Hugo hit the Carolinas as a category 4 while Katrina hit the Gulf Coast as a category 3. My foolish liberal brain would therefore expect that our example of poor, poor Charleston would've taken it up the ass compared to lucky New Orleans. More damage, slower recovery, awful all around.

And then there's the results of my Googling, which, granted, may be wrong. For all I know I was looking at pages written by foul info-terrorists, cruelly snickering fiends who dedicate their lives to making Livejournal posts inaccurate. Either way, the numbers I get are:

Charleston vs. Hugo, 1989 title bout		Nawlins vs. Katrina, 2005 grudge match
250,000 evacuations across affected areas		1.5 million evacuations across affected areas
900,000 people without electricity after the main event across North and South Carolina		800,000 without electricity after the main event in Louisiana alone; 800k more in Mississippi, 500k in Alabama, &c.
Under 100 deaths from Hugo (every source says something different but the highest I've seen was in the low 50s)		Over 1,000 dead from Katrina
Hugo cost an estimated $12.6 billion in 2005 dollars		New Orleans is costing an estimated $75 billion in 2005 dollars
"The vast majority of residents were back in their homes three months after the hurricane"		4 months later entire blocks are still deserted; 4.75 months later an estimated TWO-THIRDS of the city is empty

Wow. Funny how harder-hit Charleston, or more accurately the general Charleston area, appears to have done much better than New Orleans. Even the mayor of Charleston, who was THERE when Hugo hit, has commented on how bad it looks for New Orleans.

I'm sure it's not incompetence, though. Nah. Couldn't be that the levees weren't maintained properly, and thus broke, causing far more damage than Katrina itself could do directly. Couldn't be that FEMA is dragging its feet even more than usual on recovery. Perish the thought that our wonderful government would stiff its people on needed expenditures. Especially poor people, but then, it isn't such a big deal if poor people get shafted, right? Poor people live in economically depressed areas, and those areas aren't all that important to rebuild anyway. (which is actually what mechamom said once. She's such a Republican.)

I have nothing against the city of Charleston. I'm sure it's a lovely city, although I don't think I've ever been there. But I think it's kind of bullshit to say that what's happened to New Orleans is exactly what happened to Charleston.

I also have nothing against the other areas damaged by Hugo and Katrina. I know that a huge chunk of the Gulf Coast got raped last year, and that a chunk of the East Coast got it in 1989. But I was Googling things related to the argument that mecha and mechamom often have, and that means New Orleans and Charleston.

So yeah. There's my arbitrary time period of thought for the day. Now I think I shall go back to such mindless pursuits as playing EVE and working on comics.