the everyday adventures of sabrina

expected length of travel: 5.5, maybe 6 hours. it’s only 350 miles, and i do that to kim’s place in 5 hours on a good day.

depart the office: 1600 on the nose. in the hotel room preparing to call asleep: 0100 on the nose (ET). time spent in chicago stop and go traffic: five minutes, working my way up the skyway ramp from stony island. time spent in ohio stop and go traffic: half an hour to forty minutes, as we hit construction on I-70 about 20 miles east of the IN/OH state line. i should note that although miles and miles and miles of highway was blocked off to one lane, i saw two trucks, neither of which appeared to have anyone doing anything. on the phone to the front desk to get security to tell the idiots in the hallway to shut the hell up: 0230 (ET). (score one for security: i heard drunken laughter and conversation, then MUMBLE MUMBLE IN A STERN VOICE, drunken mumble, MUMBLE MUMBLE, then blissful, blissful silence.) i’m not normally a very vengeful person about stupid bullshit like people being giddy but i have to say that i am just the slightest bit sad that my call was not the call to result in those idiots being thrown out of the hotel. y’all, i was tired. alarm went off at 0730, but it doesn’t matter ‘cos i was already awake. no force on earth could compel a restful night’s sleep for poor sleepy niqui. … also, the christians need to change their marketing materials. i have found hell, and it was neither on fire nor did it smell particularly brimstoney. however, it was unpleasant and i don’t recommend anyone go there: centerville, indiana, where they may have a Warm Glow Candle Outlet but their one BP apparently shuts off the lights and closes for the night at just after 10 PM (especially annoying when you’re down to 1/8 tank and the car is beeping at you to feed it). what are we living in, the dark ages? closed gas station on the highway?? — and then you stop in richmond for what you expect to be about 12 gallons of “shit i gotta get gas before this road trip goes even more wrong” gas and the sunoco pump claims to have sold you 15.58 gallons instead which is strange because — you have records of every time you’ve ever put gas into your car, and the most you’ve ever put in it was 13.6 gallons, and you were pretty sure the gas tank only holds 14 gallons. plus the gauge was still hovering at the top of the 1/8 mark, so either (a) you do have a 14 gallon tank; the pump measures wrongfully and you got ripped off, or (b) you do have a 16 gallon tank, your gauge is reading wrong and in need of repair, and you narrowly averted the disaster of bone-dry fuel injectors. i am not actually sure which of these scenarios is less annoying but i will be checking my owner’s manual as soon as i make it out of the hotel this morning to see what it has to say about the size of the fuel tank. also i am cranky because i was hoping that with my shiny, lovely new tires — installed last weekend, as you’ll recall it took FOUR AND A HALF HOURS — my fuel efficiency would have returned to its pre-august 2005 levels of 32-34 mpg highway. alas, i still did not break 30. i am cranky about that whole situation. am thinking i might write in to click and clack about it actually. am tired of mechanics staring at me funny when i ask about things like spark plugs misfiring or timings needing adjustment (YES I KNOW IT’S COMPUTER CONTROLLED BUT THESE THINGS HAVE A WAY OF GOING WRONG TRUST ME I KNOW QUIT PATPATTING ME ON THE HEAD LIKE A SILLY GIRL AND JUST PLUG IT IN TO THE DAMN DIAGNOSTICS). ahem. … in other news, two linux weenie — by which i mean poorly socialized nerds, the kind of person who’ll bitterly, bitterly argue about why his choice of distro is the best and anyone (such as you) who uses something else is clearly mistaken and must be corrected at length, using as much sarcasm as possible. if you’ve been to any geekly events i know you know what i’m talking about — sightings so far, one last night before even checking in, and i haven’t even made it to the conference hotel yet. i fear for the future. … yes friends, sabrina’s cranky today.

sld@sabsbitch ~% rpm -q -a | grep ruby
ruby-1.8.5-gelber.0.1

in the past two weeks, i have built a network install server, set it up to perform automated/unattended installs, and learned how to build my own RPMs so that i can roll out our customized versions of software as a part of that automated install, rather than having to script (or worse, perform manually — shudder) configurations and compilations post-installl. oh, did all that while continuing to do general tech support and some specific applications support for an in-house application.

i am badass. i love my job.

this weekend’s going to be a blur. tomorrow, drive to columbus; saturday, con, then drive to brunswick; sunday, hang out with the craigs’ (and probably get in some good quality omgwhydidthisseasonstinksobad baseball kvetching, wherein i expect all concerned shall insult the twinkies mightily for lo, do they invite it), then drive home. then monday, 0600 shift… and the start of my first week with the pager! my coworker d. has this week solicitously advised me to get all the sleep i can this week, in light of the new night guy’s increased propensity to page versus the old night guy (who has given up his tech support ways and is trading full time). hah, hah, sez i; who needs sleep? by this time next week i may well be living in a hallucinagenic sleep-deprivation-instigated surreality. at least it’ll be colorful.

am confirmed for SP9. hooray! cannot wait. am also confirmed as doing a square for Knit a Square for Grandmother Purl. had thought i had the perfect yarn for that project — a skein of Plymouth Yarn Colorspun worsted — which was one of those yarn purchases where i am not really sure my thought process in buying it was really all that much more involved than “oooooh, pritty colors!” — but at 75% acrylic it’s outside the project’s requirements of all-natural fibers. this is frustrating because basically all my washable natural fibers are either an acrylic/wool blend, or, like, the sock yarn i’m actively turning into a sock right now. i came up with a second stash idea, namely some hunter green lamb’s pride i bought a while ago to make someone a hat (but then later on found i did not wish to invest hat effort and materials on that person, because they were mean to me (in the nutshell first-grader’s condensed version)), but they want washable too, and lamb’s pride isn’t washable. so, hmm. i’ll have to hit up the LYS and find some superwash something or other, i guess. and, dude, the colorspun would have been perfect! dang. oh, yeah, sock. got quality knitting done on the sock last saturday while sitting at the mechanic’s for !!!!FOUR AND A HALF HOURS!!!! getting new tires put on my passat. i mean, not that the tires aren’t awesome, smooth and quiet and they grip the road so much better than my old ones and i don’t squeal as i turn any corner no matter the speed or angle anymore, but, seriously, did i mention FOUR AND A HALF HOURS? ‘cos it was FOUR AND A HALF HOURS. i thought i was going to die there, and they’d come around with my keys to find my dead mummified bones blowing to dust in the wind. holding a half-complete sock. anyways, i finished the heel — MY FIRST HEEL, YAAAY — and got into the, you know, foot part. finished the first ball of yarn and joined a second. got home after FOUR AND A … you know, and tried it on … and the damned thing is way too big. i mean, i could wear it around the house, but, it’d fall down and i’d slip and break my remaining glassware or something. so i have to find a male friend of my acquaintance who wears, hmm, maybe a men’s size 9 or 10 or something, who deserves handmade socks. and who wouldn’t mind that one of them is a little wonky from being the first heel i ever turned, on my own, at a white sox game. actually, no guarantees the other one won’t be a little wonky in its own right. this whole having-to-give-them-to-a-big-footed-boy thing in mind, maybe it’s a good thing i used the blue sock yarn instead of the purple, to learn socks on circs with. because i have a feeling that if they were purple socks i’d have somewhat of a harder time finding someone who wanted them. alas. (also, how cranky am i that i knit off a women’s sock pattern, I HAD GAUGE!!, and they’re too big? what, do i have to make the child’s pattern to get socks for my own feet? i wear size 10s! dang.) in other news, i spent literally about 5 hours uploading stuff to Flickr, then tagging the photos and sorting them into sets, and trying to delete the duplicative or especially crummy photos i’d accidentally uploaded. someone promptly favorited a handful of pictures of kiyoshi. i now entertain myself daily by talking to my cat about his net.stalker. he doesn’t get the joke, but it just never gets old to me (that might be the sleep-deprivation kicking in there), so. anyways, mostly i just wanted to upload old travel photos. so that’s one thing i can chop off the to-do list. i am exercising my flickr pro account to its, well, really, its merest potential. i just don’t take all that many photos. but i did use like 4% of my 2G bandwidth in uploading all that stuff, so, go me! okay. enough rambling on about random nonsense. time to drink more coffee get ready for work. thank god i got some sleep last night, the situation was starting to get desperate.

oh well. there’s always next year, right?

*cries*

where i used to work, we had a whiteboard which eventually became covered with a numbered list on comments about making it through the day. (don’t stress too much about the numbering. we didn’t!)

1. thwart.
2. YAY!
3. Rah!
4. Whee.
5. Feh.
6. Grumble
7. Grumble
8. Grumble
9. Grumble
10. Grumble
11. Grumble grumble
12. Fuck
13. thwart.
14. Fail
15. Make listhost not suck
16. Atone
17. secede from the state
18. Fix it. it sucks.
19. Whinge.
20. Elide whinging.
21. Kvetch
22. FIX IT.
23. Whinge.
24. Surrender.
2019. despair.
2120. we have always been at war with Eastasia.
2221. thwart
23. thwart.
24. weep
25. obstruct!
26. kvetch
27. Ride ‘em, cowboy!
28. commit ritual suicide with alcohol
29. celebrate a success to only later realize it was actually a failure that was just lying to you.
30. Backtrack
31. YAY!
32. fail.
33. trouble deaf heaven with bootless cries
34. fall down
35. go boom
36. quote old country songs or Tom Waits, as appropriate
37. Place blame
38. do favors for whoever is complaining
39. Marinate in failure.
40. …and grow tender with flavor!
41. Eventually, fall apart.
42. And mildew.
43. Enumerate
44. Branch
45. Hire more management
46. Scowl.
47. Weep.
47b. sniffle.
48. co-opt
49. bi�re!
50. be resigned.
19. Shit! I forgot what I was going to write!
20. DOCUMENT
21. Flee
22. Come dragging on back
23. Commit ritual suicide w/alcohol
24. Work on someone else’s suck-ass project to avoid your own. Fix it. Yours are all still fuck.
20a. wait
20b. !
20c. wait
21. feh.
22. trifurcate.
23. Comply!
34. dammit.
25. zzz
26. lie
27. Don’t interfere with registration, o-week, finals, midterms, reading period, any time in between, or when the students are gone.
54. bemoan your fate.
55. limit your career options.
56. walk out.
57. come crawling back.
FOAD CPAN!

the reason the numbering is so wacky is that the whiteboard was actually leaning against a wall, sticking out of a box of junk, and when it would shift, we would just shift along with it. this was the work of many months. i don’t know if it’s more a product of the environment, or a product of what the environment did to us specifically.

this is your sysadmin team. this is your sysadmin team on drugs. any questions?

i admit it. last night, the game stunk. i mean, seriously, y’all. i don’t know what it was, but there was a bad vibe in the air. the crowd was eerily silent other than ambient quiet chitchat noise through at least the second or third inning. in the third, aliens froze time for a moment, long enough to scoop up jon garland and replace him with a substandard facsimile. and someone screwed up the memo to the dugout that said “please let’s not strand runners on base,” by leaving out the word “not.” and on top of that, it was so frigging cold that the beer guys were not running around with “CO-OLD BEE-EAH!” but instead with styrofoam cups of hot chocolate (16 oz, $2.75). i spent most of the second half like many of those around me, curled up into as tiny a heat-conserving blob as i could make myself, and sighing unhappily (and texting other friend-fans) about the game.

i got disgusted enough with the doom-and-gloominess that at paulie’s second at-bat (or so) i hollered “LET’S GO PAUUUUUUUUUULIIIIIIIIIIIIIE” as loud as i could (despite how embarassing it was to be the only fishwife in right field), which as those who have watched baseball with me can testify is (a) loud and (b) heartfelt. i like paulie. (i also just really like saying “paulie,” because for some reason i always say it like i’m from new jersey. i have no idea why. PAUUUUUUUUUWWWWWLIIIIE!) a few other fans followed suit. nonetheless, it was an eerily quiet night. the only times the fans really got excited were when booing maggs (who really, seriously, dude, needs a frigging haircut), our too-few homers, or when they were doing one of those stupid games on the jumbotron like “which connie’s pizza can outrun the others.” (NEWSFLASH, SOX FANS: pizzas don’t run, no matter how anthropomorphic. sheesh.) maybe it’s just that things haven’t been the same without nancy playing organ for night games, but … i think the fans are done for the season. that was sad. i will say this about detroit: their fans were very well mannered. also, they were approximately ten billion times less jackassy than the yankees fans in the house during that last series. i’d invite a liger fan into my house over a damn yankees fan any day. (though, really, that doesn’t take much effort to guess, i suppose.) anyways, this article — Let’s say it’s won, done for Sox (CST) is ostensibly about giving up hope. let me save you the read: it enumerates all the reasons we are fantastic, complains about how the twins and detroit aren’t as awesome as us, then mourns the fact that we’re not in first place and throws its metaphorical hat on the floor and stomps on it in sulky disgust, in which we Constant Readers are presumably supposed to join it. but actually, reading the article … it was a bit of a reminder of all the reasons why i love my guys. because we are awesome. okay, there’s no denying that we have been frustratingly inconsistent since shortly before the all-star break, and the starting pitching has only been something to write home about if you were writing from the lunatic asylum where you were working out your bipolar disorder. there’ve been errors, ten thousand stranded runners, bad calls by base coaches, and failed attempts to steal bases. but there’s also been a hell of a lot of really good work done. and you know, sometimes life really does suck and you work hard and do really well but your 95% still earns you a B because some other kid in the class screwed up the curve. doesn’t mean you’re somehow suddenly terrible. just means you that someone else did a little better. besides, even if the worst comes to pass — you know what, coming in third in what was the roughest division in baseball this season, after fighting until the bitter end, is still not exactly chopped liver. no, i won’t be happy if we miss out on the postseason. we are really good, and of course i want to repeat. and if we don’t, it’ll be sad, and i’ll be cranky, and then i’ll have to listen to five months of peanut gallery snarking before i can obsess over spring training next march. (and fyi, twins fans of my acquaintance, don’t even think that i’ll find it amusing to be teased, because i really won’t.) but still, i mean, damn, my guys are good. look at their record. it sucks that we’re not in first place but we still kick ass, and i will brook no dissent.

as i headed down the hallway just now, empty 16-ounce coffee mug in hand, my coworker teased me, “no more coffee!”

the other day someone saw me getting a refill at around 1500, and stopped, quasi-aghast, to inquire as to how the heck i could be still drinking coffee so late in the day. folks, i feel about coffee the same way several of my friends feel about beer: if you can’t handle at least eight pints in the course of a day (or evening), you’re an amateur. … also, if i hear another person complaining that no iPod is good enough for them because it won’t hold their 160GB music collection… seriously, y’all. you don’t need to take everything with you at all times. let’s have some perspective here: twenty years ago we were all feeling really badass because we had tape players that would auto-reverse.

“A.J. Pierzynski hits a grand slam (16) to center field. Jermaine Dye scores. Jim Thome scores. Paul Konerko scores.”

some other ones: “Jermaine Dye homers (43) on a fly ball to left field. Jim Thome homers (41) on a fly ball to left field.” sadly, i only stuck it out watching the game through the top of the eighth last night. i was so sleepy i was about to faceplant onto my keyboard, marvellous things appearing on my gameday display or not. game tonight! 1905 vs. detroit, garland vs. bonderman at the cell; we’re only 5 games behind the ligers now. we can do this. my guys are in the house.

one good thing about having the ginormous television above my cube at work is i get to watch full coverage of bush at the united nations segue straight into “holy shit, tanks have just taken over bangkok” coup coverage.

weirdness.

okay, people. quit posting doom and gloom to sox blogs. “i can’t remember the last time i felt so hopeless!” how about last september when we were in the progress of neatly and swiftly blowing a 15-game lead for the division? we whittled it down to, what, 2 games? 1.5? that sucked. a lot. there are plenty of times we pretty much just stink up the park. helloo, why are you guys’ memories so short? i love my guys, i love them a lot, but we’re pretty good at screwing up on a regular basis too.

of course we’re also good at pulling out of tight spaces and surprising ourselves as well as those around us, which is what i’m really, really, really hoping we start doing Real Soon Now. c’mooooonn, freddy!! going to the game wednesday, wearing my paulie jersey (of course) and keeping my fingers crossed for the best. i really do not want to see that E# on the standings page get any closer. oh, and, um: GO BOSTON!!!

(go buy palehosesix stuff, because the comic is funny) september is a crazy time of year, y’all. it’s the time of year when i find myself avidly watching cleveland and praying for travis hafner to go make someone cry, or when i start watching boston games so i can cheer them on. i mean, the avid cheering for pitchers to start whanging minnesota hitters with fastballs is nothing new — that’s just good times, there — but the rest of it? cheering for the rangers??? and let’s not underestimate exactly how far i’m willing to go in order to get the already-eliminated royals to suddenly find all their misplaced skills and go at least seven out of their nine final outings this year? i don’t know where you get live chickens in this city but i am willing to find out! it’s surreal; i’m telling ya. GOOOOO, BALTIMORE!!! TORONTO, YOU CRAZY CANADIANS! meanwhile, i went on a seventies kick this weekend (don’t hate; i know you sing along to the chorus of “Breakfast in America” when it comes on the lite rock station, too) and supertramp must be baseball fans.

i know that there’s a reason why i need to be alone
you show me there’s a silent place that I can call my own
is it mine, oh! lord is it mine?
you know I get so weary from the battles in this life
and as many times it seems that you’re the only hope in sight
is it mine, oh! lord is it mine?
when everything’s dark and nothing seems right,
there’s nothing to win, and there’s no need to fight
i never cease to wonder at the cruelty of this land
but it seems a time of sadness is a time to understand
is it mine, oh! lord is it mine?
when everything’s dark and nothing seems right,
you don’t have to win, and there’s no need to fight
if only i could find a way
to feel your sweetness through the day
the love that shines around me could be mine.
so give us an answer, won’t you,
we know what we have to do,
there must be a thousand voices trying to get through.

mark buehrle, don’t be supertramp. there’s still hope! throw me a white sox winner tonight!

(old comments here)

i saw someone wearing crocs to work the other day. ladies, tennis shoes over pantyhose with your boxy, dreadful suit are bad enough. CROCS ARE GOING TOO FAR.

(aside: i don’t post to this category nearly enough. funny, as i enjoy watching (and critiquing) fashion. mostly i enjoy that whooshing sound as it zooms right past me, but once in a while i can be convinced to, you know, not wear jeans and a t-shirt. (but you can have my chucks when you unlace them from my cold dead feet!)) i like this person’s sentiment: I Hate Crocs So Much, I Bought The Domain Name. man, i mean, i don’t mean to be a bandwagon jumper or anything, but i don’t think i’m even offended by flip-flops as much as i am by crocs. and i really hate flip-flops. i mean, seriously, what’s one step worse than foam shoes? PLASTIC shoes. in truly obnoxious colors. i don’t mean to be high maintenance or nothin’, but i suppose i am just not interested in shoes that you can HOSE OFF.

socks on two circs: expensive (i.e., the needles are), if any less clumsy than a DPN octopus i haven’t really appreciated it, and i haven’t really had ladders problems much so i didn’t realize any benefit there either, but faster. by a lot. even if i am horribly slow with 2×2 ribbing. so: tenatively, thumbs up. i just wish i had the right sizes of needles to work with this self-striping sock yarn i got at the going-out-of-business LYS a couple of weeks ago; my #3s are too large or my gauge to loose or whatever to show off the stripes right, so it looked like this semi-holey weird tweedy heather thing with occasional intermittant stripes. i think if i had a pair of #2 circs i’d give it another shot. as it is, i started over with a slightly heavier weight (and slightly fuzzier) yarn and am having pretty decent luck with it. hooray for socks!

also, am using inox needles for this (as opposed to boye — of which i have several, in larger sizes, but they do not have the lovely silky cables, they have the annoying “we are stuck in this shape forever; deal with it!” cables — or addi turbos — of which i have none, because, dude, you want me to pay what for a knitting needle??), and they’re very nice. much, much, much better on the easily-angered niquiwrists than those awful fighting-back needles. one end has a slightly rough join but really, compared to my other circs? they’re the cat’s pyjamas. i look forward to knitting in public at the Ohio LinuxFest in two weeks. mostly because i think it’ll be entertaining to be a unix chick knitting in a ginormous crowd of nerds. but i shall also have sock progress, so hey.

We have received your application and are pleased to inform you that you are now an official participant of SP9! Please feel free to contact us with any questions you might have. We hope you have a wonderful experience! Your SP9 Hostesses

so, as it turned out, my �secretpal_lj2 experience was … a bust.

so SPLJ2 is a secret pal gift exchange in which you have someone for whom you are choosing and sending out knit-related gifts, and in which in turn someone else sends you gifts. it ran for three months, during which time you were to check in with your spoilee (and be checked in with by the person spoiling you), etc. pretty much the same idea as every other secret gift exchange, except it was knitting/crochet-themed, and that part of the deal is you have to be a blogger and you have to post about the goodie boxes you receive. i sent my secret pal a gift box in june, and she got it and appeared to like it, from the post she made about it. i sent her a goodie box for july, and apart from a response to my inquiry about whether or not she’d received it (after i started to worry it was lost), never heard anything more. i sent off the third and final goodie box, for august, and … according to the post office tracking information it has never even been picked up. so that was sort of a bust. it was extremely disappointing to me to put together neat little presents for someone — i’m not even talking about the money; i mean the paying attention to her blog and interests and trying to come up with entertaining gifts she’d enjoy — and just get ignored. i suppose the final package will probably get returned to me by the post office, one of these days. but that was just part of the problem. apparently not only did my spoilee completely check out of the game, but the person who was supposed to spoil me did as well. i got a marvellous june goodie box… and then never anything at all. in short, i got ditched. i contacted the mod, once it became quite clear that a july goodie box was not in the cards; she said she assigned me an emergency backup secret pal, and that i should contact her if i failed to hear from the new person. which, naturally, was exactly what happened: not a peep. well, i forgot about getting in touch with her and so i didn’t let her know that i hadn’t heard from the backup pal by the 5th of the month as she had asked, but about a week later. at that point, i was disappointed but not completely despondant about the entire mess, and even volunteered to be an “angel” — i.e., be an emergency backup secret pal for someone who gets ditched — in the next round. but then i never even heard back from the mod, which was just sort of insulting. if you’re going to brag on the community about how much fun and wonderful this gift exchange you’re running is… really, when someone has a truly rotten experience, can’t you summon even the energy to apologize for said experience? it’s not like i was asking for abject grovelling: it’s email, i’ll never know that you don’t actually care. just, y’know, pretend for five minutes in front of your email client. needless to say, i will not be participating in the third livejournal secret pal exchange. it was just too deeply annoying to check the comm and my spoilee’s blog every day, faithfully, waiting to see when she got her packages, and see everyone else posting about the thoughtful things their pals had sent them — even only cheerful e-cards and fun little things that didn’t actually cost their pal to do — when i was dumped by both sides. you know, seriously, it’s bad enough luck to be dumped or to get an utterly uncaring spoilee, but to get both at once? then the person who’s volunteered to step in in the event of a dumping proceeds to dump me too?? i mean, what the hell? who did i piss off in the Knitters’ Fates Main Control Office? i swear i’ll finish that pair of blue socks if this is what happens when you abandon a wip! but, putting all that aside: i still think it would be fun to buy someone neat little presents, so i signed up for the next (real) Secret Pal exchange (the one the LJ version was based on — this one is much larger and international). it doesn’t start until next month sometime, but that’s all right. maybe i’ll finish those socks by then.

• Cake, “Satan is my Motor”
• Supertramp, Breakfast in America
• Sugar, Copper Blue
• Nirvana, MTV’s Unplugged in New York
• The Who, “Baba O’Riley”
• Scissor Sisters, Scissor Sisters
• Eminem, The Eminem Show
• Barenaked Ladies, Maroon
• Aerosmith, Toys in the Attic
• Weezer, Make Believe
• The Police, Synchronicity
• Outkast, Speakerboxx
• The Kinks, “Lola”
• The Ramones, Anthology

i am with great satisfaction watching the extremely slow-ass pxe-booting of a server off the suse install server i’ve got on my workstation.

i will never manually swap CDs again! also, beer and watching soccer is conducive to setting up linux install servers. i’m just sayin’.