Monthly Archives: November 2007

so hard for it honey

Posted in everyday kimli, nerd by

I signed up to complete NaBloPoMo 2007, a challenge to write at least one entry for every day of the month of November. I did this last year, too. For some this is a huge deal as they tend to post sporadically at best; for me it is just another acronym to abuse because I post every damn day anyway. Last year I even completed it even though I was in San Francisco for part of the month without a computer. I just have that much to say. Hell, yesterday I made three updates alone. I really need to get outside more.

One of the things I picked up from my favourite US postal depot was a Katamari Damacy puppet I won off eBay way back in June. As you can see below, I’ve already put it to excellent use by dressing a cat up as a Katamari and staging puppet photos. The pictures are really an exposé in three distinct parts:

  1. My cat is very, very patient with me
  2. I have a lot of weird shit
  3. I have far too much time on my hands

Heeeee.

I am still spending much of my day looking for a new job. I’ve not yet given up hope that my dream job awaits me somewhere out there, but some days are harder to be upbeat than others. On those days, I start looking at the entry-level clerical positions and mentally calculate exactly how much of a pay-cut I could live with yet still pay my rent. I’m really trying every avenue I can think of, though – I’ve sent unsolicited resumes to every gaming outfit in the city, I’m emailing people I hardly know but once off-handedly mentioned to me they work in the industry, I’ve annoyed the hell out of my friends and acquaintances contacts by all but begging them to help me get my foot in the door, I’ve given my resume to the mailman. It’s actually really encouraging to note the responses I’ve gotten; while I don’t have a job yet there are lots of people who are being awesome with the advice and inside knowledge and the handing off of my resume to Important People. This is good. I am appreciative. Yay for awesome people!

I know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for me; to be able to look for work and not settle for the first thing that comes along out of desperation. We’re doing okay financially; there are some savings still and I am bringing in a bit of money that covers my share of the monthly expenses. It really does help that we have no debt other than the car (although I haven’t looked at the credit card balance since we came back from Seattle), so I am using this period of “not desperate” to go after what I really want. This is good, right? I’m overdue for a position with less angst, aren’t I? Somewhere out there someone will appreciate what I can do, won’t they? Oh, self-doubt. You are entirely awesome, except for the part where you fail at life.

i forget

Posted in broken kimli by

Help me out here:

Is dropping an open pot of makeup into a bowl of olive oil and balsamic vinegar a good thing or a bad thing? Not that I just did that, or anything. I’m asking out of pure scientific interest, that’s all. I’m curious, not clumsy.

mad hax0rzzZ

Posted in kitties, nerd by

Yesterday was all about the hackin’.

After two unsuccessful Jailbreak attempts, I managed to hack the planet my iPug and installed all the missing iPhone applications. It is now a thing of glorious, fingerprinty beauty – if I thought it was cool before, now it’s just beyond awesome. If only Vancouver’s wi-fi freedom was on par with that of Seattle’s .. still, it is very cool. I love it. Portable internet makes me stiff in the pants.

And! After reading through the advice given on how to smack my router into behaving, I gave up and handed the whole mess to Josh who was able to force a firmware upgrade onto it. MacBeth the MacBook and the iPug are now both attached to our home network with nary a manually entered IP address in sight. Thanks, everyone! Your wisdom has allowed me to get my nerd freak on to even higher levels than ever before!

My cats, though I love them madly, are being giant pains in my giant ass. Each cat is now on a separate type of food, just to make my life incredibly complicated. Sasha is still enjoying the vet-recommended Medicine Food for Very Old Cats, and it’s doing wonders – she’s gained weight and is throwing up so much less than before. Cheddar the Middle Cat is stubborn as all hell and will only eat one brand of crappy horrible food that I have to stock just for her. We’ve tried everything we can think of to get her to eat anything else, but she actively starves herself if we don’t cough up what she wants. She is, however, starting to eat Sasha’s VOC food – this is both good and fine, since a) it’s not the other stuff she likes which is very much like the gas station fried chicken of cat foods and b) she is also getting on in years (we think she’s around 10) so it is not a bad thing to have her eating the VOC food.

Naturally, there is a “BUT ..” to all of this. Cheddar was historically the smallest of our three cats. As Sasha has been losing weight, Cheddar has been gaining it rapidly. She seems to really enjoy the VOC food, but it’s intended to put some meat on Sasha’s bones and is therefore putting MORE meat on Cheddar’s pointy, dumb frame. She’s getting to be a fatty! I’m so happy that she’s finally eating something else that I don’t really care; there’s just more of her to love now. When she starts getting Hobble-sized, then I’ll worry and also get a hernia from picking her up.

Then there’s Hobble. Huge, cuddly, squeaky Hobble. We weighed him last week; he’s 19 pounds of testicle-crushing feline love. He’s been happy eating his own brand of food, but today I caught him sneaking bites of Sasha’s wet + “kitty malt” food. He needs to be on a weight management diet, but I am dreading the though of trying to get him to eat some low-fat cat food when the other two get to eat delicious mashed prunes and puréed peas or whatever else it is they feed old animals. This is complicated. I liked it much better when they all ate whatever the hell I put down; I don’t know who taught them that some things are much tastier than others and almost as easily accessible .

Still, I love my cats. I’ll forgive them their pain in the ass tendencies if they’d do me the honour of living forever, and I don’t even mind the huge scratch Cheddar put on my chest this morning with her cruel and pointy back claws. That’s what the expired ointments are for!

seattle was a riot

Posted in adventure by

No, really. I’m not just trying to be coyly punk rock; we really did have a good time.

Our border crossing was made of happy mistakes and miracles – the entire thing took less than an hour, as opposed to the 3+ hours it should have been. Someone made a mistake when allowing the duty-free line skippers through, and our lane went second instead of last. Also helping: as we approached the Booths of Full Disclosure, they opened up two more and cars were sailing through. The border man was more interested in the state of garbage pickup in North Vancouver, but we were allowed through with minimal questioning and we were on our way. Yay!

We landed at Doug and Ali’s place around 3pm, and finally got to meet the small human named River. She is, as expected, adorable and we all had a great time watching her be a baby. I was pleased to note that not only was I not afraid of the infant, but she also did not spark the dreaded maternal instinct in me – I came away from Seattle without a Lust for Babies. I didn’t think it was really an issue, but you can never be certain until you’re on the front lines and now I know.

We ate some lunch, hung out, then split into two groups. The boys went to drink beer, and the girls went to go do girlie things. It was at this point I truly decided (instead of the minor resolve that came after fondling Ali’s iPhone) that I want an iPod Touch for Christmas, and Christmas was right now so I grabbed one. I named it iPug. It isn’t nearly close enough, but I enjoy self-flagellation and irony in equal doses. I’ve so far spent the morning hacking it unsuccessfully; I am not a natural hacker so I am thinking this may take me some time before I have it doing the things I want it to.

On Sunday we all trekked out for some breakfast with Bobbie and her small child, then said our goodbyes. We spent the afternoon in downtown Seattle doing the touristy things – watching fish being thrown at the Pike Place Market, getting free hugs, drinking coffee, walking all over the damn place. It was good fun. I love Seattle, almost more than I do Vancouver – if I was able to, I’d live there in a second. Since I can’t, Vancouver is still most excellent and we’re close enough so I can pretend to be as hip as I tell myself I often am.

We arrived home last night around 10pm exhausted and laden with the aftermaths of our strong dollar consumer orgy. I am officially resolving to NOT let 8 months go by before my next visit; now that my fear of this one particular baby is out of the way I am confident that I will not be so hesitant to make the very easy trip down south to see some of my favourite people in my favourite city.

It is gorgeous outside, so obviously that means I need to scoot to the Italian supermarket for some fresh pasta and sauces for tonight’s dinner.

I like my life. I wish I had a job and a pug and harboured a little less resentment at my husband, but I can only hope that this too will pass and eventually I can be really really happy instead of just sort of mostly happy.

plz help the nice kimli

Posted in angst, nerd by

Okay, there’s got to be a Mac whiz out there somewhere:

I has issues. At home we have a Linksys Wireless-G Router, model WRT54G. Ed’s laptop (runs XP) connects to our mixed WPA network, no questions asked. My MacBook, when Boot Camp’d to XP, connects to the same network just fine. However, since day one, I’ve had to manually input an IP address into my Network settings in order for OS X to connect to the wireless. What gives? This sucks. My home network is the only network I’ve ever encountered this with and it is not good at all. Until now I’ve just been doing what I have to in order to get an internet connection at home, but I have officially Had It and I am Not Going To Take It Anymore.

You can tell I’m serious because I’m using Title Case.

Anyhoo. It appears this problem is present on ALL Macs in my humble abode; a friend’s MacBook Pro would not connect to the network and at the time we did not know this sneaky manual fix. I must fix it, and soon – my iPod Touch is having the same problem, and will not connect to my wireless network. Please help! Why do my Apple products hate me so much?

I know that once upon a time we had a very good reason to be running a WPA network instead of a WEP but I can’t remember that reason. If I switch, will everything be rainbows and lollipops again? Oh please help!

squeeeeeee!

Posted in nerd by

Fedex just pulled up to my apartment and buzzed at my door, which surprised me. I’m not waiting for anything that would be delivered by Fedex, so what gives? Did someone perhaps send me a fabulous present?

I went down to sign for the package, and that’s exactly what happened – someone DID send me a fabulous present! Adam and Lilie, old gaming buddies, sent me a copy of Enemy Territories: Quake Wars with the sweetest note ever! The game made me SQUEEEEE but the note and the thought behind it made me all squishy and weepy because it was just so nice and unexpected. Yay!

I finally got sick of having a meme in place of an About section, so I updated that if you’re at all bored.

And lastly, I am so cold I am sitting at my desk shivering and yes, I am wearing clothes. I think I’m going to go do the dishes just for the sake of sticking my hands in hot water for a while.

hell hath no fury

Posted in everyday kimli by

.. like a Kimli with a cup full of Diet Coke she can’t drink.

Last night Miranda and I went to a Champagne Reception at Bodacious. We got all fancy (because we are seriously lacking in reasons to get fancy these days) and headed off down Main Street for some Fun Times. Afterwards we went to grab a bite to eat, then I took her home and my evening promptly turned crappy. Yay!

I was planning on stopping at McDonald’s on my way home because I wanted some Diet Coke. I tried to call Ed to see if he wanted anything because I am a nice wife like that, but unfortunately, Ed is dumb. 8 phone calls later, he still hadn’t picked up his phone because it lives on vibrate and is never in his vicinity. I *hate* this. It infuriates me that I only have one way to get a hold of him and it never works for various stupid reasons – dead batteries, didn’t hear it, left it at work, forgot where it was, didn’t feel it ring. So, that put me in a bad mood. Strike one.

Two: I went through drive through and ordered a medium Diet Coke and an apple pie. The girl at the window was annoyed I was paying with a debit card, thrust my drink at me, handed me my bag, then shut the window and left. That’s fine, except I received no straw, no napkins, and no receipt. This made me angry. I wanted to drink my Diet Coke and I had no straw, and as I was driving I wasn’t about to just pop the lid and chug straight from the cup. I couldn’t just ask her for a straw because she had walked away from the window and there was no one in sight. I don’t care that it was just a McDonald’s drive through; shitty service annoys the fuck out of me. In fact, I was so annoyed that when I got home I actually looked up the number of the McDonald’s online and called to complain. This was about the third time I’d gone through that drive through for a drink and not received a straw, and the second time without napkins. I never call places up to complain, but I was already in a bad mood and seriously, what kind of fucking idiot hands someone a cold drink without a straw. Next time I go into that McD’s I get a free meal that I don’t really want – all I want is a straw with my drink. And some napkins. The receipt I could care less about, but it pissed me off more to realize I had to go look up the phone number because she didn’t give me that, either. I worked in drive through for years; it’s not hard. Gimmie a straw. I hate you. Strike two.

Three: It took me four tries to parallel park outside our building. This never happens; I’m an awesome parallel parker. This time, not so much.

Four: Sasha decided the hallway was awesome and escaped out the door when I got home. I wouldn’t have found her, except I had forgotten something in the car (strike 3.5) and when I went to fetch it she was coming up the stairs and shrieking at me. Stupid cat, this is why you don’t run away. You are dumb.

Other than the four rage-inducing incidents, I had a lovely evening with Miranda. I bought a hat, and some inappropriately coloured tights. Today I have to clean this dump; we’re going to Seattle tomorrow and I suppose it would be more pleasant to come home to a clean apartment rather than the disgusting sty it is right now. I am so domesticated. It is humiliating.

Today I am boring. Sorry ‘bout that.