Finished Book Six.
OMG OMG OMG.
These are *not* children’s novels. Not the kind I read as a kid, anyway.
I had the inkling the book might end something like that, but I was hoping I was wrong. Damn… OMG…
Off to read Sheryl‘s LJ posts about HP6. Then off to bed.
OMG, I can’t stop reading. I’ve been reading for over two hours now, more like three. Damn you, Jo Rowling, damn you and your addictive writing style and characters to Zarth’s lowest hell!
…And I mean that in the nicest way possible.
*dashes upstairs to keep reading*
I had such plans for my evening. I made my dinner, I did my Yoga For Dummies, I checked my e-mail, I almost-balanced my checkbook… then I took a Harry Potter break.
Six chapters later, I haven’t worked on the LSM website, I haven’t practiced my mellophone, and I haven’t written a review of “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”
*sigh*
I was just reading a column on DCI.org, and one particular section caught my attention:
It?s funny how we all easily forget memories that are so important to us. What would we do without each other to remind us of all the funny things that happened? Would we try and remember the day that our caption head fell right on his butt trying to imitate how horrible we looked during a phrase? Or would we simply forget and let the memories fade with time?
The last thought is the scariest for me that comes along with leaving the activity for good. My caption head, Jamie Oakley, always said that we will never remember the bad days, only the good. That our struggle in the heat and torrential downpours would make us better but would never be our first thoughts when reminiscing about the entire season with our friends.
Maybe I just haven’t schmoozed with enough alumni from my years in Northern Aurora and the Bluecoats, but I find that I think equally of the bad and the good times. They were fairly evenly dispersed throughout my three years in Junior corps, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. (Well, maybe.)
Continue reading
I had spent probably an hour or so fiddling with the new LSM site, saving to the server every few minutes.
Thank goodness for my particular choice of workflow, because shortly before 9pm, the power went out. I had been listening to some Oakenfold (generally my soundtrack of choice while doing webstuff), and suddenly I heard a popping noise outside as my monitor winked out. Then silence. And frustration, until it occurred to me that I’d been saving every two minutes. 🙂
I got up from my desk, walked over to the cabinet o’ candles, and pulled out a couple. Lit one for the basement, one for the living room, and one for the dining room. It wasn’t actually dark yet, but I like to be prepared.
Anyway, it was too dim to really do anything indoors, even with the candles lit, so I went outside to see if the neighbors’ power was out, too. (Yes, I left the candles lit like an irresponsible Diana.) Sure enough, the neighbor lady was outside, and so was the one a couple doors down from her. Our whole end of the street was out.
Went back inside and located the old-school phone that doesn’t need plugged into a power outlet. Not the cell, although that would have worked, too. Anywho, I dug out the electric bill and called the 24-hour Emergency / Outage number I found listed there. I was expecting some surly switchboard operator, but it ended up being one of those automated voice recognition systems. At first, I thought it would be voicemail hell, but once I figured out that it was that voice recognition shit, it wasn’t bad. Just weird.
Once our power outage was reported to the nice computer, I grabbed a book and sat out on the front step to read for a while. After about 20 minutes, though, even the light outside wasn’t sufficient for reading. So, I went inside, blew out the rest of the candles (I’d extinguished the one downstairs before I went out to read), put on socks and shoes, grabbed my keys and my cellphone (it has a built-in flashlight) and went for a walk. Hell, nothing better to do, right? And maybe by the time I got back, my power would be back on. Right?
Wrong-o. Got back half an hour later, and still no lights. Not even any streetlights. Went back inside, re-lit the candles, and got out the Palm IIIc to write this entry. Thank goodness for backlit screens.
So, here I sit, at… *checks watch in glow of Palm screen* …10:45pm, covered in a thin film of perspiration thanks to the impotent and powerless box fan—
Holy shit. The power just came back on. I’ll be goddamned.
Two hours without power. Could have been worse.
Now to go upload this entry, and see whether my computer’s fried…