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Entries for October, 2006

October 6th, 2006

'sup?

I went to the cardio on Monday, and got to see my heart on a sonogram machine thing. The waiting room was, as I feared, full of sick, old people. Theres nothing like a waiting room full of old guys with walkers and wearing Navy Veterans caps to make you feel self concious about being at the doctor's at all. You get this feeling like, 'They got actual sick people and I'm taking up their time for dumbassedness.'

I wore a Holter monitor for 24 hours, and barring anything weird turning up on that eevrything is fine. Apparently its just something some people have, women usually more than men, and thin people more than fat people. Caffeine intake is unrelated, but can irritate irregular beats in some people, though not in all. Stress is a trigger, and emotional stress much more so than physical. Exhaustion and dehydration can also make irregular beats more frequent.

But since my heart shows no structural problems, and my blood pressure and pulse are "good", the doc says my chance of it actually being a danger is close to 0%. If I'd had an enlarged heart (like my brother says he has) or something like that, then he'd be concerned, but I don't. In fact, any of the drugs prescribed to lessen irregular beats are more of a risk than the beats themselves. (Or at least more of a risk than mine. Some people have actual serious problems associated with palpitations.)

Which leaves me with the medical intruction of 'get enough sleep and reduce stress and maybe caffeine'. And me in a field comprised mostly of coffee-fueled all-nighters and near-impossible deadlines. That's stress-free livin' right there.

So I have to get some labs done to see if something non-heart related is causing it, like hyperthyroidism--which I doubt. They've been less now that I'm calmer and know the ol' ticker's OK, which is also common--and go back to the cardio in a couple of weeks so he can tell me if anything suspicious was on the monitor. He doubts there will be.

I feel like a moron, but at least I know I'm a healthy moron who has close to a 0% chance of suddenly dropping dead.

And now I'm done with this topic. Less neuroses next time, I promise.

rurounibug ; 03:49 PM|3 replies

October 9th, 2006

those bastards!

I spent a few days at my uncle's and while I was away, my neighbor, whose wireless I'd been shamelessly jacking, security-password enabled it.

Stingy, selfish jerks.

I'm back to using my own craptacular dial-up, so I guess no more youtube for me. And with the three last episodes of Ouran Host Club still unwatched, dern it.

rurounibug ; 10:09 PM|2 replies

October 14th, 2006

a bit late for a heads up

But the Late Late Show gives a very useful Friday the 13th warning:

"If you are a sexy teenager camping by a lake on this date, and it's exactly ten years since the other sexy teenagers dissapeared by the very same lake, please be careful."

And let me add, try to hang close to the pretty girl-next-door tipe. She's the one that always makes it.

rurounibug ; 12:41 AM|fine, ignore me

October 14th, 2006

Harry Potter destroys innocence

Mattel's HP broomstick replica is something like a witches-and-warlocks hobby horse. Also, it vibrates. And the kiddies? Like it a little too much. So, it seems, do their older siblings:

http://community.livejournal.com/booju_mooju/622049.html

Why the hell anyone would think a hobby horse broom, would need to vibrate is beyond me. Also, it's a frikkin' broom. Damn it, kids, the broom from the hall closet and a little imagination should be all you need to play Harry Potter make-believe games.

A broom replica. Christ.

Really, the vibrating sex-toy function is the only thing that saves it from being a complete waste of cash.

rurounibug ; 01:54 PM|fine, ignore me

October 15th, 2006

racist vs. historical

I have a very, very boring Friday afternoon class called History of Animation in which we mostly watch old cartoons. You know, of the crappy Merry Melodies variety that, as kids, we wished they'd just skip over and get back to Bugs Bunny and Road Runner.

I sort of despise this class, partly because so much early animation is sort of lame (What was intro-ed as a "powerful, moving anti war" cartoon involved squirrels singing Christmas songs) but also because nothing is discussed beyond who made it when and who owns the charachters.

It's just dry and boring, but also, the instructor is starting to irritate me.

Last class, we watched cartoons from World War II, mostly filled with biting political critisms like "Hitler/Hirohito is a stinker."

(Nyeeee, whats up, Doc?)

And sure, you could argue that war-time depictions of the enemy are historical--which is what people have argued--but aren't past views regarding race also historical?

Why is expressed desire to utterly destroy one race/people considered not as bad as dated stereotipes of another? And if theres a disclaimer warning for Black stereotipes wheres my warning for all the Germans being fat, dressed in viking garb or lederhosen and named Brunhilda and for all the Asians being bucktoothed, knee-height, squinty-eyed,and canary yellow?

rurounibug ; 09:54 PM|2 replies

October 19th, 2006

is it dark out already?

I'm still alive. I just have nothing interesting to say. It's getting dark out earlier now. It's funny how it seems to hit so sudden. One week, it stays light like forever and the next it's twilight-y by six.

Still warm out, though, thank god. I need to buy a winter coat thats more . . . winter coat-like than what I was using last year. I found a cosy warm denim jacket, but my cousin says one can't wear it with jeans.

I discovered these clothing rules when she was accusing me of having no fashion sense. Or really, her mother was relating that my cousin thought I needed a make-over.

(more reasons I am not cool)

Course, she's fourteen and vogue-ified. The glossy mags have re-programed her, or something. It's actually kind of scary. I blame those perfume sample pages and their mind-altering vapors. I went to my other cousin's house to see how he was doing after surgery and told him the tale.

Me: R wants to give me a make-over.
otherCousin: Careful. It can be pretty painful.
Me: Yeah? I heard you had experience with this sort of thing.
otherCousin: She tried to wax my eyebrows!

rurounibug ; 11:52 PM|6 replies

October 23rd, 2006

ROME

HBO owns my soul. But since I have don't have cable, it owns it via the rental place.

Although this is midterms week--which means hand-shit-in week, moreso than exams or test--I've spent most of my scheduled must-work-on-projects time watching Rome instead. Well, watching Rome and and bitch-festing with my brother on IM. Which, yes, ate my whole weekend.

I'm up to episode ten, which is about as far as I got watching it at the folks' place last Christmas, so I trust no one needs a spoiler cut. And episodes eight through ten? Make so much more sense when you've seen episodes one through seven. It's so much more fun now that I know who everyone is, while last Christmas I think I managed to pick out Caesar and Cleopatra.

All the nobles piss me off, except Octavian, whos cool in a creepy-scary way, but all the interaction between Veronus (Spell? I cannot!) and Pullo is great. Oh, Pullo, you big ol' lug.

I keep trying to quote dialog, then realize its not half as funny off-screen.


Midterms? Who and the what now? And it's due tomorrow you say?

rurounibug ; 11:33 PM|2 replies

October 28th, 2006

it is named for 'yay'

Surfing around the LJs of those LJ ladies what make t3h prett3h boy-porn, I discovered I am not the only one who calls it squeenix.

Although; Dark Nation? Rufus x Dark Nation? Hello, EWwww-factor. And just when I thought FFVII fandom couldn't get more wrong.

rurounibug ; 12:21 AM|fine, ignore me

October 28th, 2006

do you ever get this feeling like . . . .

I've blogged before about the phone at my parents' place and how Dad's high-tech machinations have made them utterly, completely fubar. There is a hold function that cuts you off, a bazillion extensions all linked up to a mysterious switchboard I have heard of but never seen, which in theory meant that one could pick up a phone in just about every room, but ended up with everyone waiting for someone in another room to answer (which meant phones rang and rang . . . ). It also meant that various people called girlfriends in the middle of the night for hours on end, while Jakarta phones are billed on the minute, and that other people got on-line on the pay-by-the-hour internet service. (Unlimited Internet is for rich Western countries, yo.)

As a side note, when I say "various people" it is not code for "my two brothers". I actually mean "various people". My folks don't have a house, they have a village. Well, no. It's a house, but theres people crammed in every available corner and people I don't even know who are just . . . there. I don't knwo who they are, I don't know where they come from, I don't know where they sleep. They're just sort of around.

Anyway.

Theres is every reason for phone calls not to make it through to my parents' place. No reasonable reason, but let's just say I'm never surprised to fail at hailing the mothership. But sometimes, just sometimes, you have to wonder if the failure of their communications system isn't also very convinient.

See, I've been calling home for the last forty minutes. Continuous dialing. And it's not busy; it's ringing. At least on my end. However, I did get through right away about an hour and forty minutes ago. It went like this:

Me: Hi. It's me.
Dad: Your mom's not home. Call back in an hour.
Me: Okay!

So, an hour and change later, I called back, as ordered by the boss, and the phone rings and rings and rings. I tried handphones in case the house phone "borked"--as my brother would say-- but got only mailboxes.

For forty minutes.

When I do get through I swear to god I'm gonna get, "Thats odd, the phones here didn't ring at all. La la la~"

And theres no reason the phones there wouldn't fuck up. They fuck up all the time. And yet, sometimes, I gotta wonder . . . .

You know, they could be sitting around the table, playing scrabble or something, going, "Just take the phone off the hook, its 1AM there, he'll get tired soon."

rurounibug ; 01:20 AM|fine, ignore me

October 29th, 2006

30 days, 50,000 words

Thats right, I signed up for NaNoWriMo.

Whether I'll make 50,000, or even write anything at all is questionable (Is it ever!), since mostly I wanted in on the forums.

Oh, and shiny webthings:

rurounibug ; 06:52 PM|4 replies

October 29th, 2006

1667

rurounibug ; 07:26 PM|14 replies

October 30th, 2006

Settings

I lied. I have some backwork. Not made for NaNo, but I have some. In fact, I had two passably fleshed-out worlds before my old lappie borked--I'm liking this word more and more--but I still remember the basic ideas if not all the charachters' first and last names.

(copyright baskerville, 2006)

Opinions, advice, prefferences? Scrap 'em all?

rurounibug ; 02:20 PM|9 replies

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