I almost always feel like I've forgotten something when I leave on a long trip but usually I don't (both, I suspect, due to all the effort that goes into making sure I don't). This time didn't work out so well - no deodorant, no tie, and my toothbrush disappeared somewhere.

At least I'm certain the doors are locked, I have every charger, and everything volatile is out of the fridge.

Travelling travelling
I'm leaving today at about 0500 for a sixteen-ish hour car ride with styger and her brother, down to Thanksgiving with their grandparents in Hilton Head. From there, we travel on to her dad's place in Miami for a week before attending her uncle's wedding.

I'm currently in the weird place of preparing to leave for two weeks where there is more that I need to get done but I need to wait a bit before I actually do it. Since we're leaving so early and I'm going to need to close up the house it's made more sense that I don't bother trying to sleep than that I go to bed and get up an hour later.

Since we're not leaving via the airport and I can't leave my car on the street for two weeks unattended, I ended up purchasing a month pass at a garage in Evanston so I could park in there. It's cheaper than two weeks would've been at the airport anyway, with the added benefit of effectively free parking for the rest of December. If there weren't so much administrative overhead I'd probably do this for future trips as well.

The downside of the whole trip is that I won't have any internet in South Carolina unless there's still a neighbor with an unsecured network... this means I can't get much in the way of work done (I'll try for some thesis section drafting for things I've completed recently, but that's not likely to go much of anywhere) and I'll be out of touch with people. I've got some more thoughts about names brewing, but I think that ought to wait for when I can actually reply to any comments there might be.

Current Music: Sasha & Digweed - Northern Exposure Expeditions

Finally getting around to reading The Left Hand of Darkness... I think (hope) that the sexism in Ekumen society is played up for contrast, but it still makes the book much more uncomfortable.

Exercise Bike: because it's probably not the best idea to go running at two in the morning.

In other news, someone has taken Redglasses on Twitter. It's been so long that I have no idea what else to use.

Current Music: From the Earth... TO THE MOON

Jury duty discharged. My panel went into a case between two ladies and a cab company; no details of what happened, but from the questioning knee and neck injuries were involved. styger's knees took the impact when she was hit by a car, and apparently they don't like scientists on juries in the first place because we have different standards of proof, so I got to go home.

I feel vaguely bad about resenting civic duty, but they treat it less like civic duty and more like moving cattle.

Jury duty tomorrow! Up at half past five to sit in a room being bored for eight hours and hopefully not get selected to keep doing so for the rest of the week, and get paid less than a third of minimum wage (no travel renumeration) for the privilege.

Did I mention that I can't sleep before about one in the morning? Or that my sinus problems getting worse means I don't sleep well in the first place?

Drinking myself to sleep is go.

Current Music: Siouxsie and the Banshees - Dazzle

Big presentation to my Thesis committee ("Please approve the research I've been working on for the past four years") in 45 minutes. I don't feel ready, but really, I never do; I seem to give good presentations anyway, or so I am told. Stressing out regardless.

While I am apparently good at giving presentations (implying that I write good presentations), I am really bad at the actual act of writing them. It always takes forever, my attention wanders off more than usual, I never feel like I'm getting anywhere. Somehow it turns out all right in the end?

It also doesn't help that my most productive time of day is the evening, when I'd rather have stopped working and be doing things with people.

Post-Mortem: I am told that it was good! Apparently I have a better grasp of the experimental methods than most grad students. I think I ummed and stumbled more that I usually do (i.e. at all) but I also didn't have to use any of the bonus slides. In any event, I am approved to do the work I already did.

Current Music: There is some dust in my fan

The problem with these steroids is that the potential side-effects are basically the same as the symptoms they are supposed to treat. I can't tell the difference between 'haven't started doing anything, just some bad days' and 'making things worse'.

Also I'm just not that comfortable with shooting steroids up my nose; I'd probably rather just have surgery.

Current Mood: headache

I woke up this morning to find out that we had no water, and now I have steroids up my nose.

Godwin extension
Is Kim Jong-il Web 2.0's Hitler?

Carnival! Woo!
Last weekend was CMU's Spring Carnival, so styger and I made the drive back to Pittsburgh. At this point most of my friends have moved out of town, so the event is the de facto homecoming - we mostly see people who also came into town for Carnival. Really, we spent most of our time playing board games with people we would otherwise be playing WoW with.

KGB's booth was pretty good this year, and not only did they manage to get the t-shirts done in time for judging but they also took third in independents. One thing I particularly noticed was all the fake rivet heads on the exterior - Booth judging really is about finish, they never notice the structure and barely acknowledge architecture. You need every part to be both finished and visually interesting.

We ended up at Saturday night's 7 party because most of the group kind-of wanted to go, one person fully wanted to go, and it just made transportation easier. The current residents don't really know how to throw a party, but it went pretty well nonetheless. Somewhere along the line housing went and bricked over the Unhappy Place, but my duct-tape striping was still on the sprinkler pipes, so some of my mark yet remains. People mostly had a better time than they were expecting and drunken dryer shenanigans were prevented with the aid of reason, distraction, and electrical disconnection.

The weird part of the 7 party was that we're now old enough that we only really know other people who have also left, so we're not directly connected to the people who were actually throwing the party. I properly met a few new people, which means I actually know some of the current KGB, but it still feels like soon the 7 parties and whatnot will be a foreign place.

Adding someone new as a friend, I realized that I mostly didn't have any idea what I'd used my various custom friends groups for - except for the obvious ones, which I hadn't used at all. It turned out that most of them had exactly one post, made because at the time I wanted some people not to see it. It doesn't matter any more, so they're all gone now.

Who knew parity-violating atomic transitions could be so dull.

Incoming-election stress
I know that 538 is giving a 96.3% chance, but I won't actually believe it until something like Friday.

Someone forgot what "Volkswagen" means
It takes longer to remove the headlights from a new beetle than it did to remove the engine from the old one.

Like hell I'm paying the dealer to do it, though.

Since everyone is talking about it
My favourite part of Doctor Horrible? Bad Horse's Desperado Chorus.

There will be blood
It might be yours
So go kill someone
Signed, Bad Horse.

I'm at JLab again, taking night shifts and being completely unable to get a decent cup of tea god damn it. However, I just made a point of eating at the local Mexican restaurant, because their chicken is really, really good.

Current Music: TMBG - When it Rains it Snows

Flat tire, a tally
Holing a tire on yet another bloody pothole: Dammit.

Full-size spare: Awesome.

Having to buy a compressor just to bring the spare up to pressure: Dammit.

Successfully plugging the flat tire: Awesome.

Pressure showing that the sidewall is fucked up too: Dammit.

My brain has been stuck in neutral all day. I've accomplished maybe half an hour of actual real relevant work, part of which was figuring out that I'd already done the thing I was expecting to do, and part of which was determining that the files I clobbered by typing ">" when I meant "<" are on a disk that doesn't get backed up, and the person who could recreate them is out of touch in France. Oops.

I did my civic duty earlier, voting on two pages of relevant things and five pages of judicial appointments about which I could find no useful information. In some cases the Tribune actually gave reasons behind their endorsements that I could use to decide whether they were talking crap; in others, I just skipped the question.

This might not have helped the brain-neutral.

On the other hand, reading though the archives of a webcomic is a great way to be unproductive... even if, or particularly because, the various outfits are making me think about different ways to put together things that are in my wardrobe, and how I already overuse the best ones, and how my interesting wardrobe isn't all that big in the first place, but it's not like I've used it at all in ages anyway, and buying clothes off the internet doesn't work very well, and my feet are too big, and argh.

The snow-parking-rules siren came on and stayed on for three minutes. It went out ten minutes ago, but still I hear it.

Current Music: KMFDM - Anarchy

Holiday Marathon, Part the First
In Hilton Head SC, visiting styger's grandparents and stealing wireless from a neighbor.

SC Law prohibits feeding or molesting the alligators.