Batting cleanup; Groceries; Firefly; Computer problems again; Recruiting
2/6
Joined up with Char, Leroy, Jesse, and sometimes Will to do some work on the remains of the keg. Chatted about girls, probably. Or other guy sorts of things. Enjoyable evening.
2/7
I needed to do some due diligence for Valnetine's day (romantic, I know) and so stopped by Central Market to place an order for flowers. Picked up a few gourmet-ish items such as some fresh apple juice, the sausage and tortillas mentioned in my cooking post (way back), and some cheese for snackage. Then went on and did real grocery shopping.
Cindy dropped by on the way home from football.
2/8
After a quick store run for veggies, did the aforementioned cooking. Went to Will's where he and Bill and I finished off the remainder of Firefly. I was sad to see it finished. It felt like there should have been more. Fourteen hour-long episodes and a feature-length movie sound like a lot, but it felt like it just scratched the surface. My opinion of Joss Whedon was, for a while, fairly neutral, balanced between Buffy, which I never got into, his quality first arc on Astonishing X-Men, and his slightly lower quality second arc. Firefly/Serenity tips the scale in his favor. Touché, Mr. Whedon.
2/9
I made a b-double-e-double-r-u-n to pick up beer and wine for recruiting. Picked up 12 shiners, 6 St. Arnold's Spring Bock, 6 St. Arnold's Lawnmower, 6 Honey Brown, 6 Sierra Nevada Wheat, 6 Groslch, and 6 Bohemia. When I got home, I set myself to tasks which were less productive, but not for lack of trying.
The PowerMac had been giving me lots of trouble. BitTorrent and Solarseek would only run for minutes before crashing. Solarseek in particular got bad and demanded constant babysitting for me to snag an album from Dan. And the computer itself would crash if left running indefinitely. This does not make for a good server. My Bittorrent ratios suffered.
Suspecting that my problems were caused by my decision to just clone my laptop straight over to the desktop, causing some sort of mismatch of computer DNA, I decided to wipe the PowerMac and start afresh.
Only the OS installation failed. Like 10 times. Before finally finishing. And once it finally worked out, the computer would crash during my attempt to copy over the contents of my laptop. My next idea was to pull some RAM out in an attempt to isolate the problem. If that didn't work, it would be off to the Apple Store. I always had the option to sell it for parts like I did with the poor ol' iMac, but I'd really like to, you know, have a functioning computer.
2/10
Had a physical therapy appointment in which Frank pretty much admitted that he had no idea what the problem was. He wanted to see me when I actually was in horrible pain. That's going a bit hard to do. Ultimately, I gave it up. It ended up costing me over $100 in copays, despite the fact that the idiot never actually did anything to help. Fuckers.
Came home, took a brief nap, loaded up the car, drove into school, spent half an hour looking for parking in the garage that's close to Wanda's office. Carried forty pounds of ice and an empty cooler for a lengthy distance, resulting in lots of pain. But hey, it saved me a trip. Had a nice catered lunch from Central Market (oh why can't you put the havarti cheese on something other than a bland turkey sandwich?) and chatted with the recruits, a couple of whom got points for recognizing my Postal Service t-shirt. Went into lab briefly. Went to seminar and struggled to remain awake. Came back to school, ate generic BBQ, drank good beer, and had the somewhat unpleasant experience of interacting with the boss while I had my buzz on.
Made a very brief stop off at home before picking up the recruits at the hotel and then heading to Ernie's on Banks, which is one of Oliver's favorite spots. The place evoked... something I can't quite put my finger on. Something from my childhood. Maybe it was something about the interior, the furniture—did I imagine wood paneling?—that seemed 80s. I'm not quite sure.
The place itself was quiet, which worked out well for the recruits to chill out after a long day. I put down the card for the tab, and the bartender asked me how I got stuck with buying drinks for everybody, and seemed significantly less puzzled after I explained that I was being reimbursed by school. We managed a $170 tab (plus tip). At some point, I had decided to start buying top-shelf liquor. In addition to the requisite beers and a gimlet (she assumed vodka and I had to correct her about gin), I had a whiskey sour with Maker's Mark, and a tequila and tonic with Comemorativo which turned out quite smooth and tasty. I remarked to the bartender that I was surprised at her lack of surprise at my order, and she mentioned that some character on Lost had ordered the drink in a flashback.
I want it noted that I was doing it back before it was cool.
Graham was out, which was nice. Char was there, as was Samara. Cindy came by and we played some pool (with quarters from the bar tab—all expenses paid!).
We made our exit around 1:00 and the bartender thanked us for saving her night (financially, I assume, though she could have been talking about just not being bored). There was talk of taking off for Woodrow's (which turned out to not quite materialize), but Cindy wasn't particularly interested, so we ended up calling it a night.
2/11
Ran a little late picking up the recruits (honestly, nobody should seriously expect me to be anywhere before noon on a weekend), and went to Pappasito's. Ordered a Cazarita, only to be informed that we would get a better deal by ordering pitchers, but only upon delivery of said pitchers did I realize that we were no longer getting top shelf. Fucker. I wouldn't have asked for a Cazarita if I had wanted the house margarita.
That disappointment aside, I had learned my lesson from the previous trip and got a group together to go in for the big grilled plate thingy and enjoyed quail, sausage, and beef and chicken fajitas, in addition to the side of tamales (which were quite good) that I had ordered. The food, at least, was quite satisfying—once it arrived. Char and I established that we should insist on Ninfa's in the future.
Took the recruits on my standard tour of the city (here's Montrose; here's downtown; here's transitional midtown; here's gentrified midtown; here's condo-land; don't live in condo-land), came home, read comics, napped, picked up recruits, and headed to Graham's for the party. I suggested we cut our pizza order by one and pick up some wings from the conveniently located BW3's down the road, which turned out to be a hit. The pizza was good, too, and I introduced several people to the wonder of the salsa verde with chicken.
Had a decent if low key time at Graham's (a little too much talking about science). It got late, fast. I was kind of pushing to check out the virology party, which Chris had called to invite me to, but the recruits were interested in checking out Dan's gig at the Proletariat, which was good enough for me.
Sadly, though, the Tom Waits wannabes that played wouldn't yield the stage to Dan, and so he didn't get to do his second set.
Also. Let me take this opportunity to state that I hate the dicks who are currently employed as bartenders at the Prole. Time slows down while I wait on them to get my drinks. I don't know how they manage it. It's magical (but not in a good way). I wanted to stiff them on tips, but I was afraid that would make the service even worse.
Seriously. I hate these people. Something must be done about this situation.
Speaking of other people I hate: I respect that it is convenient for residents of my apartments to use one of the many stray shopping carts on the property to ferry groceries up to their third story apartments. This is fine. But really, folks. Don't leave them in the halways. It's just plain tacky, not to mention inconvenient. In a display of passive aggressivenes, I positioned them as inconveniently as possible for the other tenants. Days later, they were still in the hall, albeit rearranged a bit. Also still not moved: the bag of broken, spilt, and otherwise leaky beer bottles sitting on top of an empty pizza box in the stairwell. Bunch of fucking savages in this town...
That night was the coldest weather we had in quite some time. I left my windows open while I slept. Here's what the thermostat looked like when I woke up:
It made me happy. Even the next afternoon, the temperature was still firmly in the lower sixties. It continued to make me happy.
2/12
Pictures taken with the then-new camera phone:
Finally got around to watching the season (series?) finale of Arrested Development. Which was fairly satisfying if a little rushed. I hope the show sticks around. But the last episode was a great bookend for the show, wonderfully running antiparallel to the first. It would be a fitting end.
Went to Susan and Jerry's, did laundry, ate Chinese food, came home, watched wonderful Sunday night television. Grey's Anatomy was just as absurd this week as it was the previous week week. Absolutely, alarmingly absurd. This better have been a one-time Super Bowl stunt, rather than a change in direction.
Joined up with Char, Leroy, Jesse, and sometimes Will to do some work on the remains of the keg. Chatted about girls, probably. Or other guy sorts of things. Enjoyable evening.
2/7
I needed to do some due diligence for Valnetine's day (romantic, I know) and so stopped by Central Market to place an order for flowers. Picked up a few gourmet-ish items such as some fresh apple juice, the sausage and tortillas mentioned in my cooking post (way back), and some cheese for snackage. Then went on and did real grocery shopping.
Cindy dropped by on the way home from football.
2/8
After a quick store run for veggies, did the aforementioned cooking. Went to Will's where he and Bill and I finished off the remainder of Firefly. I was sad to see it finished. It felt like there should have been more. Fourteen hour-long episodes and a feature-length movie sound like a lot, but it felt like it just scratched the surface. My opinion of Joss Whedon was, for a while, fairly neutral, balanced between Buffy, which I never got into, his quality first arc on Astonishing X-Men, and his slightly lower quality second arc. Firefly/Serenity tips the scale in his favor. Touché, Mr. Whedon.
2/9
I made a b-double-e-double-r-u-n to pick up beer and wine for recruiting. Picked up 12 shiners, 6 St. Arnold's Spring Bock, 6 St. Arnold's Lawnmower, 6 Honey Brown, 6 Sierra Nevada Wheat, 6 Groslch, and 6 Bohemia. When I got home, I set myself to tasks which were less productive, but not for lack of trying.
The PowerMac had been giving me lots of trouble. BitTorrent and Solarseek would only run for minutes before crashing. Solarseek in particular got bad and demanded constant babysitting for me to snag an album from Dan. And the computer itself would crash if left running indefinitely. This does not make for a good server. My Bittorrent ratios suffered.
Suspecting that my problems were caused by my decision to just clone my laptop straight over to the desktop, causing some sort of mismatch of computer DNA, I decided to wipe the PowerMac and start afresh.
Only the OS installation failed. Like 10 times. Before finally finishing. And once it finally worked out, the computer would crash during my attempt to copy over the contents of my laptop. My next idea was to pull some RAM out in an attempt to isolate the problem. If that didn't work, it would be off to the Apple Store. I always had the option to sell it for parts like I did with the poor ol' iMac, but I'd really like to, you know, have a functioning computer.
2/10
Had a physical therapy appointment in which Frank pretty much admitted that he had no idea what the problem was. He wanted to see me when I actually was in horrible pain. That's going a bit hard to do. Ultimately, I gave it up. It ended up costing me over $100 in copays, despite the fact that the idiot never actually did anything to help. Fuckers.
Came home, took a brief nap, loaded up the car, drove into school, spent half an hour looking for parking in the garage that's close to Wanda's office. Carried forty pounds of ice and an empty cooler for a lengthy distance, resulting in lots of pain. But hey, it saved me a trip. Had a nice catered lunch from Central Market (oh why can't you put the havarti cheese on something other than a bland turkey sandwich?) and chatted with the recruits, a couple of whom got points for recognizing my Postal Service t-shirt. Went into lab briefly. Went to seminar and struggled to remain awake. Came back to school, ate generic BBQ, drank good beer, and had the somewhat unpleasant experience of interacting with the boss while I had my buzz on.
Made a very brief stop off at home before picking up the recruits at the hotel and then heading to Ernie's on Banks, which is one of Oliver's favorite spots. The place evoked... something I can't quite put my finger on. Something from my childhood. Maybe it was something about the interior, the furniture—did I imagine wood paneling?—that seemed 80s. I'm not quite sure.
The place itself was quiet, which worked out well for the recruits to chill out after a long day. I put down the card for the tab, and the bartender asked me how I got stuck with buying drinks for everybody, and seemed significantly less puzzled after I explained that I was being reimbursed by school. We managed a $170 tab (plus tip). At some point, I had decided to start buying top-shelf liquor. In addition to the requisite beers and a gimlet (she assumed vodka and I had to correct her about gin), I had a whiskey sour with Maker's Mark, and a tequila and tonic with Comemorativo which turned out quite smooth and tasty. I remarked to the bartender that I was surprised at her lack of surprise at my order, and she mentioned that some character on Lost had ordered the drink in a flashback.
I want it noted that I was doing it back before it was cool.
Graham was out, which was nice. Char was there, as was Samara. Cindy came by and we played some pool (with quarters from the bar tab—all expenses paid!).
We made our exit around 1:00 and the bartender thanked us for saving her night (financially, I assume, though she could have been talking about just not being bored). There was talk of taking off for Woodrow's (which turned out to not quite materialize), but Cindy wasn't particularly interested, so we ended up calling it a night.
2/11
Ran a little late picking up the recruits (honestly, nobody should seriously expect me to be anywhere before noon on a weekend), and went to Pappasito's. Ordered a Cazarita, only to be informed that we would get a better deal by ordering pitchers, but only upon delivery of said pitchers did I realize that we were no longer getting top shelf. Fucker. I wouldn't have asked for a Cazarita if I had wanted the house margarita.
That disappointment aside, I had learned my lesson from the previous trip and got a group together to go in for the big grilled plate thingy and enjoyed quail, sausage, and beef and chicken fajitas, in addition to the side of tamales (which were quite good) that I had ordered. The food, at least, was quite satisfying—once it arrived. Char and I established that we should insist on Ninfa's in the future.
Took the recruits on my standard tour of the city (here's Montrose; here's downtown; here's transitional midtown; here's gentrified midtown; here's condo-land; don't live in condo-land), came home, read comics, napped, picked up recruits, and headed to Graham's for the party. I suggested we cut our pizza order by one and pick up some wings from the conveniently located BW3's down the road, which turned out to be a hit. The pizza was good, too, and I introduced several people to the wonder of the salsa verde with chicken.
Had a decent if low key time at Graham's (a little too much talking about science). It got late, fast. I was kind of pushing to check out the virology party, which Chris had called to invite me to, but the recruits were interested in checking out Dan's gig at the Proletariat, which was good enough for me.
Sadly, though, the Tom Waits wannabes that played wouldn't yield the stage to Dan, and so he didn't get to do his second set.
Also. Let me take this opportunity to state that I hate the dicks who are currently employed as bartenders at the Prole. Time slows down while I wait on them to get my drinks. I don't know how they manage it. It's magical (but not in a good way). I wanted to stiff them on tips, but I was afraid that would make the service even worse.
Seriously. I hate these people. Something must be done about this situation.
Speaking of other people I hate: I respect that it is convenient for residents of my apartments to use one of the many stray shopping carts on the property to ferry groceries up to their third story apartments. This is fine. But really, folks. Don't leave them in the halways. It's just plain tacky, not to mention inconvenient. In a display of passive aggressivenes, I positioned them as inconveniently as possible for the other tenants. Days later, they were still in the hall, albeit rearranged a bit. Also still not moved: the bag of broken, spilt, and otherwise leaky beer bottles sitting on top of an empty pizza box in the stairwell. Bunch of fucking savages in this town...
That night was the coldest weather we had in quite some time. I left my windows open while I slept. Here's what the thermostat looked like when I woke up:
It made me happy. Even the next afternoon, the temperature was still firmly in the lower sixties. It continued to make me happy.
2/12
Pictures taken with the then-new camera phone:
Finally got around to watching the season (series?) finale of Arrested Development. Which was fairly satisfying if a little rushed. I hope the show sticks around. But the last episode was a great bookend for the show, wonderfully running antiparallel to the first. It would be a fitting end.
Went to Susan and Jerry's, did laundry, ate Chinese food, came home, watched wonderful Sunday night television. Grey's Anatomy was just as absurd this week as it was the previous week week. Absolutely, alarmingly absurd. This better have been a one-time Super Bowl stunt, rather than a change in direction.
posted by L. Maxwell Ward at 1:53 AM
