I was nearly in an accident because of some jerk in a small black car ...

I was on the onramp trying to get onto 680, and looking at the guy in the next lane, gauging when there was enough room to pull in behind him safely (mind you, this is at 60MPH or whatever), and this rat-bastard d*ckhead a**hole m*****f**ker whipped between our two vehicles at something close to 80 ...

All it would have taken was me moving a bit to the left or the other guy starting to change lanes and there would have been an UGLY mess on the freeway.

I HATE jerks like that ... I really do.

Sigh.

Sigh. I have been checking in on the tech support groups for the iPhone and finding more complaints and while there are suggested fixes, none of them seem to work (I've tried some, others have ...). One person said that the support person he/she talked to claimed it must be a Microsoft problem (er? It worked before the iOS4 upgrade, now it doesn't work ... what changed? The operating system of the PHONE!!). Sigh.

Elvis Costello talks about a basic concept I think some of us forget, or have forgotten, in the SCA ...:

Peace, Love & Understanding
Elvis Costello

As I walk through
This wicked world
Searchin' for light in the darkness of insanity.

I ask myself
Is all hope lost?
Is there only pain and hatred, and misery?

And each time I feel like this inside,
There's one thing I wanna know:
What's so funny bout peace love & understanding? ohhhh
What's so funny bout peace love & understanding?

And as I walked on
Through troubled times
My spirit gets so downhearted sometimes
So where are the strong
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny bout peace love & understanding? ohhhh
What's so funny bout peace love & understanding?

So where are the strong?
And who are the trusted?
And where is the harmony?
Sweet harmony.

'Cause each time I feel it slippin' away, just makes me wanna cry.
What's so funny bout peace love & understanding? ohhhh
What's so funny bout peace love & understanding? ohhhh
What's so funny bout peace love & understanding?

I know many of the folk on our flists saw the play at 12th Night. It would be great to get some reviews that you would not mind sharing with the troupe and allowing me to put up on the GSP website.

In addition, if anyone had a camera and got some stills, that would be greatly appreciated! I understand from mastersantiago that the video turned out well, but some stills are always useful ...

Thanks!

Last night was a blast (at Brion and ysabella_dolfin's), lots of great yeows, lots of great people ... very fun evening. We left somewhere around 1ish. I think that's the latest we've been up intentionally in quite some time ... many thanks to our hosts!

Hopefully 2010 will have all the good stuff, and a lot less of the bad. Last year had way too much fu in it, so here's saying "Goodbye 2009, hello 2010!".

(And where is my flying car?)

Hope it's a great birthday (and we'll be by this evening to help celebrate) ...

Page Copy through April, 1993 (27 YEARS worth) done. Only 17 years to go and I'll be caught up ... gad.

Time to get outta the house for a few. (roswtr is here doing costuming stuff with the spousal unit ...) Gotta go pick up stuff from the cleaners, and drop off more, and get some lunch.

Busy, busy, busy ...

Then study some for the MCAS. (Do it while I have a chance.)

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Yesterday was pleasant. We went down to Livermore in the morning, after having bagels and lox, cream cheese and capers for breakfast (along with coffee), and having made some grugeres as some of our donation to dinner/food all day.

I also made another dish at the SIL's place that didn't turn out as well as it probably could have. Not a big deal, folk liked it.

Anyway, very pleasant day. Got some ties, a couple of shirts, and The Death of Captain America (in hardback -- gad that thing's huge, but a good read!) from the spouse, some more DVDs from my Amazon wishlist from the gift exchange (the step-father-in-law's son). Also some videos from loup_noir and hubbie (Futurama Season 4, and the spouse got some art DVDs from a BBC show).

Dinner was good (the step-father-in-law did up a beast roast, there were potatoes, salad from a friend of the SIL's and more, the spouse did up two pies for dessert ...).

Hope everyone had a great holiday with friends and/or family.

We're all pulling for a good friend (wufmew) who has been diagnosed with a kidney problem (that most likely will require surgery) while visiting her family for the holidays, and another friend (graniab) has has been diagnosed with a problem with her spleen that could be really bad. Good grief. Hugs to all ...

To everyone, however you celebrate them! Have a great holiday. 'Nuff said. (I was going to try to write something about friends and family and ... but I can't quite get it to coalesce ...)

I have Brion's photo album done! That's one less item on my "gawd it's been sitting there a long time!" pile of stuff to do.

I can bring it to FP tonight, too. Whew.

Got home late from the movies last night, not surprisingly. Avatar was still fun the second time around. The plan had been to see it in 3-D, but it was sold out ... so we saw it in 2-D. Had a good time with the folk there ... Got up way too early (six-ish), and got a few things done this morning ... not as much as I could. I had planned to go to the school and to a trial run of the MCAS for Access, but I think I'll push it off to next week. I have three weeks to get it done in, and the one run is not going to count against it. The voucher will be waiting for me ...

Not much to say. May go downstairs, make lunch, watch a movie ... maybe nap a bit. We'll see.

We'll be seeing her in a couple-three hours for dinner and a movie ... with friends ...

Two of my students took the Microsoft Certification for Word today (I just got an email), and both of them passed ... that's really cool. I have an offer to my students that I discuss day 1 of the quarter (and reiterate a couple of times): If you pass the MCAS before I administer the Final Exam, you don't have to take the Final, AND you get a perfect score in the gradebook for it.

The reasoning is that if they can get the MCAS, then they've learned things pretty well, and we're sort of teaching "at" the MCAS. At least, I am. I am not sure all the instructors are ...

I've made the offer for most of the time I've taught Word at the school (nearly 2 years). This is the first quarter anyone's taken me up on it. There are least two more who have purchased vouchers to take the MCAS, too ... so ... that's pretty spiffy.

Wow. The troupe continues to blow me away. Great performances ... just ... wow. Everyone gets next weekend off, it being XMas weekend, then one more rehearsal ...

Today while the van is getting an oil change we'll be doing shopping in "downtown WC". Gad. Well, it'll be the spouse and I so it won't be horrible, but ...

This is our next-to-last rehearsal. We'll have a small audience today, which should be fun -- a chance to get some feedback from someone who hasn't worked on the show at all.

Saw Avatar last night. The spouse (aastg) and the former apprentice (mastersantiago) both summarized the movie better than I could. I am seeing it again Tuesday with leohtulf and callistotoni's S/O, and am looking forward to it, despite the predictability of the plot. Besides, this time will be in 3-D ... be fun to see what jumps out at me ... heh.

Previews were interesting. A remake of Clash of the Titans, among other things ... hmm.

I loves that restaurant. We (meaning a bunch of us) took callistotoni and J/S out to dinner last night. Wow. Fun conversation, great food ... very good evening. Tiring (dealing with San Francisco the Friday before Christmas ...), but fun.

The panhandler with the really complex story about needing to get to a military base in Monterey was ... interesting ... he wouldn't take "No" for an answer and insisted on giving us the story. The spouse has dealt with this type before. It will start out with some amount, then something else will be needed and he'll need more money ... and ... sheesh. Oh well.

The (BART) train home was super crowded with some real inconsiderate 20-something's being very loud ... yippee.

But the evening itself was worth it ... I wouldn't have changed anything except put gags on the idiots on the train.

Herself is sleeping in. Heck, I slept in a bit. Time to shower, make coffee, vacuum downstairs while herself is still sleeping ...

What's with all that sunlight glaring into my face in the faculty lounge? Gad ... my eyes ... it hurts us! (It's really bright, reflecting off the hood of someone's car, and the sky is very blue ... how weird after the last week or so!)

Yesterday's rehearsal was quite good again. With the masks done, or nearly done, we're having to work harder on the physical aspects of reactions to whatever is happening on stage, but people are once again rising to it.

Despite the show being a tragedy, we're having fun with it ...

madbaker -- you were talking about seeing one of the rehearsals -- next week or the rehearsal on Jan. 3rd (the Sunday before 12th Night) are the only two options at this point. We're sort of planning on a tiny audience next Sunday (the 20th). (Same for ysabella_dolfin, but I have a sneaking feeling that with Saturnalia the day before you may not be up for it ...)

Having just watched (with the spouse) Miracle on 34th Street, I thought I'd dig up this old gem ...

( Is There A Santa Claus? )

Small, rainy weather, fun ... great food. Too much food, but very well done.

Our table started with just stella_nordica and I. It grew to Francisco and Lenore later, who were sitting with some folk they didn't know, and decided that they at least knew us .... We wandered the hall visiting with folk, folk came and visited over at our table ... so neither of us were bored. But the event had smaller turnout than usual (some of the fighters who might have been at the BH were at a fighter practice in the South Bay, apparently some Duke from the midrealm came out ...). Those who weren't there missed one of the most pleasant events of the year.

And the hall at Camp Herms has been renovated, seriously. I can't even describe it (apparently the kitchen is much better too).

see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Fighter Practice was small, but a lot of fun. Not a lot to say ... just chatting (some good food, though!). No fighters. Brion didn't get home (at least not until after we left a bit ago).

I made a smaller salad (only two heads of romain heart, rather than 3), but used a honey-mustard dressing, with almonds and garlic crutons on my "base salad" ... it got scarfed heavily, despite there being only 7 or so adults (and Rat couldn't eat the salad because he's allergic to mustard), there was little left when we took off around 10. Heh. Herself (ysabella_dolfin) did a dish in the BIG pot with rice (and golden raisins and whatever else was in there) and goat. Very good.

Last night the spousal unit and I met up with leohtulf and misagillian for dinner and a movie in Dublin.

It's always fun to hang with them. Turns out this was also our Christmas Present (thank you!). Weirdly, they both beat us there (arriving from different locations) and were having chips at On The Border when we arrived. We usually get there first (due to traffic, etc.).

But dinner was decent (with good chats and joke factors¹), and we wandered over to the movie googleplex to see the movie Blind Side.

( Review of Blind Side behind cut ... )

For whatever reason misagillian didn't have a coat last night, so we didn't spend a lot of time standing outside the theatre chatting (it was freaking cold!). There was frost on the cars ... in this part of the world? This early in the Winter? (Okay, it was 30 degrees when I got up this morning ...)

It was a good evening. Nice to get some chatting time in with good friends.

---
¹ Okay, I was proud of myself with this one, I blindsided the spouse ... leohtulf was going off about Sherlock Holmes originally being written in medieval English, and it had to be translated ... (which was based on an earlier part of the conversation) and the spouse started to respond, and I blandly looked at her and said "Well, his middle name is Conan ..." (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of Sherlock Holmes ...). She choked on her drink and gave me such a look! Hee. Then she started laughing ...

I may try to make some borscht for some Wednesday night FP. It being winter, hot food is good ... and I have a cookbook (recommended by mad_duchess that looks really good) of Russian recipes. This week I promised to do a salad that would go well with garlic croutons that Krysta has sitting around the house. (Have some ideas there, no huge changes in my usual salad, different dressing, though ...) And being a bit wiped already at the beginning of the week ... but maybe next? If I can figure a few things out (this calls for marrow bone, I dunno if Lunardi's carries such things, although I wouldn't be surprised ...).

I know the idea of "beet stew" doesn't sound appealing to most folk, but a really hearty borchst actually doesn't taste much like beets, more like a full-scale stew. The recipe I'm thinking of (I'm at work and the cookbook is at home) has lots of meat in it ... This particular recipe reminds me of the first borscht I ever had -- a friend of mine (from my just-post-high school days) had gone to Russia. He asked a native how he made borscht, and the basic premise was: "take a beef bone, some beets, and whatever other vegetables you have in the fridge, and stew them together ... " This one actually has specific types of meat. The author put a lot of detail in, which is pretty cool.

I also love doing Rachel Ray's "Christmas Pasta" ... that's good stuff.

... of busy and ... lazy.

Seriously.

I had plans. (I know several others on my flist did too.) At least I don't appear to have gotten ill ...

After play rehearsal Saturday, the spouse was really wiped out (a variety of things), and so we didn't go anywhere. Missed Etain and Janos' party. Came home and puttered around the house.

Yesterday I got up a little later than usual (it was Sunday, and had nowhere to go). Did some work on the NY client's app, then went downstairs. Made coffee, had breakfast (a bowl of cereal -- nothing exciting). Watched Die Hard (it is sort of an XMas movie ... sorta ...). Eventually came back up stairs and did a bit more on the app, fixed a total of 8 reports, but 6 of them were minor modifications in code based on two monthly reports (the others were quarterly, bi-annual and annual versions ...). Burned a CD to FedEx to him today.

Then got some lunch food from the local Lunardi's, made lunch, watched some movies with the spouse, and ended up watching Robin William's latest HBO show Weapons of Self Destruction (with weird sound issues, thank you so much Comcast). Oh, we went grocery shopping in there, as our usual Friday shopping didn't happen.

So ... a bit of productiveness er productivity (I should know better than to make up words ...), but not as much as I had planned. Sigh. Got to bed later than usual, and the spouse even later ... feeling a bit grainy -- good thing I don't have to lecture until after noon. Gad.

May try to nap a little this afternoon, as we have D&M planned this evening with L&G, which typically means getting home later than I tend to go to bed.