June 30, 2013

Today was yet another day in the life of me. Not a lot going on. I listened to a lot of Battlestar Galactica commentary and worked on some new cross stitch patterns. Not incredibly productive but I've done worse.

Tonight we had a family dinner and I ate more greasy food in the form of veggie burgers and onion rings. Delicious but filled with guilt.

The rest of my night was spent listening to a few more Battlestar Galactica commentaries, a little bit of Minecraft, and now the movie 2012. I only saw parts of it in the theater and have wanted to see it ever since, and it has been a really long time since I rented it, so I finally decided to watch it. I am liking it so far. The special effects are crazy, I like John Cusack, and they managed to squeeze in a bit of comic relief.

Tomorrow I work a double, so I will probably be spending a lot of time on my cross stitch and make significant progress into the fifth series of Doctor Who. I still need to burn the sixth series so hopefully I don't make it that far. Although I have plenty of other stuff to do with my time so I think I'll survive.

June 29, 2013

This morning I watched a bunch of YouTube videos, read for a bit out on the back porch because the weather was nice, and then took a nap because reading out in a warm, sunny place really made me sleepy.

I really wanted to play video games today but it took me forever to pick one because I was in the mood to play but not in the mood to play. It's weird. I ended up trying LEGO Pirates Of The Caribbean again, after putting at least a half hour into it awhile ago and then having it freeze on me. It has an auto-save feature but it doesn't seem to ever save and there isn't a manual save option. I decided to give it another try today and it froze up once again when I got out of the jail and onto the beach. So I uninstalled the game. At some point I'll try downloading it again and hope that maybe the problem was due to a bad download. I should go back and finish LEGO Harry Potter: Years 1-4. And then move onto the second game. Sometime. After that frustration I decided to try another game and went with Hotline Miami. It was pretty fun but also unforgiving. There was a lot of trial and error. I went through maybe the first act or something like that before admitting to myself that I really didn't want to play video games.

I really like video games but I am in the state of mind once again that playing them is such a waste of time. I could be doing so many other things instead of wasting my time playing a game. But I also know I won't do anything productive with that time anyway. It is similar to wanting to do everything and instead doing nothing. Which is frustrating.

My friend informed me today of her discovery that she could overcome her fruit and vegetable allergy by heating them in the microwave for 20 seconds. It turns out that it isn't really an allergy to the specific fruit or vegetable, but a protein in the produce that is found in weeds and grass. So your body initially thinks you're coming into contact with weeds and grass, which it is normally allergic to. And apparently body heat is enough to counteract the protein but that doesn't kick in soon enough so allergy-like symptoms crop up before that can happen. Fascinating stuff.

For dinner tonight I decided to have Sonic for the first time in a long time. I get drinks there maybe once a week but it has been forever since I had dinner. And it will probably be the last time for another long while. I always get the breakfast toaster with just the egg, no meat or cheese. Tonight they got the meat part right but they left the cheese on, which was gross. I also wanted to get a large raspberry cherry limeade and somehow ended up with two Route 44 cherry limeades. So I spent more than I wanted and didn't actually get what I want. And I don't think my stomach appreciated the cheese on my sandwich.

Tonight I watched more YouTube videos and then continued watched the episodes of Battlestar Galactica that have commentary. I like getting the little insights given away in commentaries. The most interesting so far being the fact that the actor who played Lee “Apollo” Adama is actually British. I had absolutely no idea.

I also worked a bit more on my cross stitch. I made decent progress and it is looking cool so far. I am excited to see the progress as I start to finish letters. I am also glad that I am still enjoying cross stitching. I am honestly surprised by that. I think a big part of it is the puzzle of trying to continuously stitch around a pattern with a long piece of string, not having to jump more than one square or stitch myself into a corner. And the math involved in centering patterns. It keeps things interesting.

Our neighbors have a history of being assholes with fireworks. They seem to always set them off before they are supposed to or after they are supposed to. On Memorial day they were setting off giant firecrackers and freaking out the dogs. Tonight sometime after ten o'clock they started setting off firecrackers, freaking out the dogs, and once again they are a couple days early. And then it stopped. So I looked outside and there was a cop parked in the circle, out talking to the neighbors. I don't know if they happened to be driving buy and heard the firecrackers or if one of the other neighbors called. Either way, I was happy to see that.  

June 28, 2013

To make up for yesterday's massive entry, this one will be quite a bit shorter. I went and rented the first season of Battlestar Galactica from the local rental place and the second season from Hastings. I had a bunch of credit at Hastings from returning previous rentals early so I got the second season for free. Not bad. I like free.

At work I continued working on my cross stitch, finished David Tennant's run of the Doctor, and started watching the first episode of Battlestar Galactica with the commentary. I made a decent amount of progress on my cross stitch. I'd say I'm about a quarter of the way done with the first letter. As for Tennant, his last episode is still incredibly sad. I had to take a couple breaks just so I wouldn't start crying like an idiot at work. I couldn't prevent the slight misty eyes. When I finished that I went down and watched an hour or so of The Heat to cleanse my palate. And it worked because Melissa McCarthy is hilarious. At some point I need to watch the whole movie. At the end of the night I watched all but the very beginning of White House Down. I hadn't seen a single trailer for it but it was actually a pretty decent movie. A good popcorn action movie with a lot of comedy mixed in. I like action movies that don't take themselves too seriously and throw in some comedy.

And that was my day. Renting stuff and working. I have no idea what is on the agenda for tomorrow. Probably not a whole lot.  

June 27, 2013

Well, I lied a bit about Battlestar Galactica. I ended up staying up until 2AM watching the last few episodes of the series. And then I laid in bed until at least 3AM trying to process it all. Having watched all 75 episodes in eight days, it is kind of hard to believe it is over. It is like reading a really good book and getting entirely sucked into that world, and then having to come back to the real world when you finish the last chapter. Granted, I just finished the series last night, I am still trying to come to grips with it all.

Overall, I would have to say I liked how the series wrapped up. So now I'm going to get into spoilers. The finally found Earth. Or New Earth. Technically they already discovered Earth, which is where their ancestors were from, but it had been devastated by a nuclear strike from the Cylons, just like they did on Caprica. They mentioned throughout the series how they cycle just kept repeating itself, the Cylons rising up against their human creators and obliterating them with nuclear weapons.

So in the final episodes they find New Earth, which is actually our Earth but 150,000 years ago, and they come across our ancestors. In the episode they watch them from afar but they are still tribesman without a written language and they never show any direct interaction. After settling on New Earth, they use Sam (one of the first five Cylons who has become a hybrid) to fly the entire fleet of ships into the Sun. That seemed a bit excessive. They still had some small Raptors (at least one) on the planet but no other means to go back into space. I can't imagine going from a space traveling civilization to an earthbound one. I would have at least left the ships in orbit. We know it works out in the end because the human race goes on to thrive but still. Also, rather than establishing a large city with the 30,000 survivors (like they have every other time), they decide to break the cycle and split people into smaller groups and spread them across the planet. I guess this makes for an easy explanation for how and why there are people all over the world now. My favorite part of the last episodes was when they flashed back to the characters on Caprica before its destruction. They had done a little of that previously but this was the first time we got a better look at who some of the main characters were before everything changed. The very end of the episode, where they go to the invisible versions of Baltar and Caprica 6 in present-day Earth, felt a bit tacked on (and the post-production voiceover for them because they didn't pick up their voices during filming was pretty bad). They showed a National Geographic where a skeleton had been found that seemed to be the Eve to the current human race, and I think it is supposed to be Hera. So we are to believe that the Twelve Colonies landed here 150,000 years ago, and the only evidence of their existence is a skeleton bridging the gap between Homo sapiens and previous versions. None of their technology.

As for the characters, I think my favorite supporting character was the grumpy old doctor who smoked and acted like he didn't care when he actually did. My second favorite was probably the lawyer who eventually became the president, at least for a bit. I think Edward James Olmos was a perfect casting choice for Adama. I think that he was most similar to the original character than any other actor in the new series. Adama did things every now and then that I didn't agree with but overall he was a badass, even if he did cry a lot in the last season.

The President grew on me but that was helped by the fact that she was dying. Like I mentioned in a previous entry, I liked her better when she was dying. I would have preferred another miracle with Cylon blood to get rid of her cancer but apparently that only works once. The saddest part about her dying was the fact that it left Adama alone. He had given his whole life to the military and then the protection of the last remnants of the human race, and then when he finally got the chance to settle down, and found someone he loved and could settle down with, she dies. In the last episode Adama and the President are lying together, looking at herds of animals, when the President starts to have trouble breathing and Adama asks her if she wants to take a closer look. So he puts her in the Raptor and when Lee and Kara come over it becomes apparent that this is a one-way trip because they start saying their tearful goodbyes. When they take off they fly around for awhile and the president dies and I figured Adama would crash the Raptor with both of them still in it. Instead he lands it in a place perfect for the cabin they talked about building. Later they show him sitting next to her grave telling her that he had laid out the floorplan for the cabin. I guess we are to assume that he plans on leading the life of a hermit, talking to the dead President.

Going back to Lee and Kara, the star-crossed lovers of the series, Lee asks her what she is going to do now. She says that her destiny is complete and she didn't have anything left to do. When she asks Lee what he wants to do he starts telling her how he wants to go out and explore, climb mountains and cross oceans. When he turns around, Kara has disappeared. Earlier in the series, Kara's Viper explodes in front of Lee and months later she appears again, in a brand new Viper, thinking that she had only been gone for a few hours and that she had found Earth. When the fleet eventually finds Earth, thanks to a tracking beacon and the new Viper, Kara discovers that the tracking beacon is from her old Viper, that was crashed into Earth, with her dead body still inside. She spends the rest of the series trying to figure out who or what she really is. I want to look up theories online but I am assuming she was some sort of angel. She obviously physically returned after her Viper exploded because she had interactions with people (unlike the piano player) but she wasn't necessarily human, because she just blinked away after finally leading the fleet to New Earth. Leaving Lee all alone, just like his father. I also think Kara could possibly related to Daniel in some way, the Cylon who was artistic and permanently boxed. Maybe her dad was actually Daniel (ignoring that Cylons being able to procreate is rare). Kara had been painting the way to Earth since she was a kid and the song she figured out that got them to New Earth was the same song that unlocked the final five. I think it is easier to go with her being an Angel but that makes it harder to explain all the childhood stuff. Unless her destiny was set from the beginning.

I liked that Saul and Ellen ended up together, and that Athena, Helo, and Hera remained a complete family. And that Caprica 6 and Baltar ended up together. That made more sense than Caprica 6 and Saul because Saul tended to see Caprica 6 as Ellen. Which makes sense when we find out that Saul and Ellen were originally married thousands of years ago, when they both knew they were Cylons, and that they ended up together when they believed they were humans and weren't aware of their previous life. And the downfall of Caprica and the flight across the universe began because Baltar was seduced and fell for Caprica 6. And they were each others invisible friend/conscience/angel/whatever.

As for Baltar, he was probably the character that infuriated me and entertained me the most. He could be such a pansy and a pushover and the only thing he ever really cared about was his own self-interest and well-being. Every time you thought he was doing something good, he messed it up. Until the end, sort of, when he decided to go on the rescue mission for Hera. I think he was sick of the harem but I also think he saw it as a chance to come back a hero if he survived. Luckily it didn't turn out like that and he went off to live happily ever after with Caprica 6.

The characters I felt sorriest for were Tyrol and Gaeta. Tyrol fell in love with Boomer, a Cylon, before he (or she) knew that she wasn't human. Then she went active and shot Adama and Tyrol's reality was destroyed. But he still loved her and he was torn apart once again when Cally shot and killed Boomer. Then he beats the hell out of Cally in his sleep but eventually marries her and has a kid with her (or so he thought because it ended up being Hot Dog's). And even though he decides later that he settled for Cally and still loved Boomer, he is destroyed when Cally dies. Then Boomer comes back into the picture, and now that he is a Cylon, makes him believe that they can have a life together. But she is just manipulating him so she can steal Hera. And although Boomer kind of does the right thing at the end by returning Hera to Athena, she will always be flawed and Athena kills her. So Tyrol is left with no one. And then discovers when the final five are about to give the formula for resurrection to the "bad" Cylons, that the former presidential aide (who I never liked because she immediately embraced being a machine and a bastard when she discovered she was one of the final five) killed Cally. This caused Tyrol to break the data flow with the resurrection formula and kill the presidential aide. Good riddance. And it was probably even better because that caused the "bad" Cylons to believe the resurrection formula was a trick which lead to all of them being killed and the Cylon colony destroyed. In the episode I watched on Netflix, we last see Tyrol sitting in the CIC, staring off into the distance. In the regular episode it is explained that he goes off to live on his own, on an island. And apparently the show creator later made it canon that Tyrol settled in Scotland and became a king. Which makes sense because he was the union leader and good at organizing people.

Gaeta was an idealist and a good man, helping out the rebels on New Caprica, but I don't think he ever recovered from actually being on the bad side with Baltar, and it all went downhill when his leg was amputated. And the tipping point was when Dee committed suicide. He decides to stand up for what he believes is right but it is misguided and then he collaborates with Zarek (played by the actor who played Apollo in the original series) who is worse than Baltar when it comes to wanting power and doing anything to get it. It was sad because Gaeta was so intelligent and had so much potential but then it all crumbled away.

And going back for a second, the most surprising and unexpected death in the entire series had to be Dee's suicide. She came back from having a nice evening out with Lee (her estranged husband), talked to Gaeta, was incredibly happy, and then she put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. Going out on top I guess. She was sweet and innocent and married Lee because she loved him even though she knew he loved Kara more. Then her hopes were dashed when they reached Earth and it was a nuclear wasteland and I think it all became too much for her to handle.

I think that is all that has been floating around in my head since last night about the show. I did get tired of all the drama and just wanted to shake people and tell them to stop, but the show kept me engaged and I got completely wrapped up in that world. It is kind of disappointing coming out of it to a world without realistic human machines or Faster Than Light space travel. It is a series I need to look into buying or hope that I can rent it and copy it, without running into scratched discs. I can easily see myself watching the series again. It will be different knowing who all the Cylons are and how certain characters will progress but I think it will still be interesting.

Keeping with the theme of TV shows, Doctor Who. I finished up with Donna Noble yesterday and it was sad because she is my favorite. When I first watched her series I found it incredibly depressing that she had gone on all these wonderful adventures and done great things across time and the universe, but was doomed never to remember any of it because if she did, she would burn up. Now, however, I think she was kind of lucky. All the other companions remember and it is brought up by the Dalek dude that the Doctor's true nature is represented by his friends and companions because they have all taken up arms and are fighters. Rose fell in love with the Doctor and lived a dangerous life trying to get back to him. Martha pined over the Doctor (annoyingly) and ended up defending the Earth by working for the military and almost blowing the Earth up to keep the Daleks from winning. Mickey became a fighter. Rose's mom fought. Captain Jack joined Torchwood. Harriet Jones shot first and asked questions later, and was eventually killed by Daleks. Sara Jane spent her life tracking down suspicious things. And Donna would have turned out the same way but I don't think that would have been for the best. She did the investigative thing in the beginning to meet the Doctor again but she really just wanted to travel, not get involved with saving the Earth or tracking down aliens. She wanted to travel with the Doctor for the rest of her life and she couldn't do that, so in a way it was more humane to wipe the memories completely, allowing her to go on and lead a productive life, not caught up in what could have been.

Moving on, at work today I typed up everything that precedes this sentence. I was in the mood to ramble and empty my head. I also continued work on my cross stitch and made it to the final two David Tennant episodes of Doctor Who, not counting the episode I am missing (Planet Of The Dead, I think). I could have finished the fourth series but I got sidetracked by actual work at work. Same goes for my cross stitch. I only managed to finish the last border and get a tiny start on the first letter. My job-related work involved adding new trailers and ads to all the movies and transferring movies for tomorrow. There was a new tech there today fixing the sound problem in one of the auditoriums and I liked him better than the usual guy. He seems like he used to be a teacher because he explained everything he was doing so I actually learned some stuff today. He managed to come up with a temporary solution for the sound issue but then another theater went down. This, I learned, was caused by a bad ignitor, indicated by the fact that the bulb wasn't making the usual clicking sound (the ignitor sparking) that it usually makes when the bulb strikes. So one theater was fixed and another went down, leaving us par for the day.

After work I ate the second half of my Chipotle burrito and then much more successfully gave one of the cats her pill. Yesterday my mom put butter on the pill like the vet told her to make the pill go down easier. This is great in theory but every time I had the opportunity to drop the pill in Ella's mouth the pill would stick to my finger. Today, no butter, and I probably got the pill in her mouth in less than a couple minutes. The nice thing is that Ella starts to constantly meow, opening her mouth long enough for me to get my fingers in and hold her mouth open and drop the pill in. It is easier than giving a cat liquid medicine through a syringe and a million times easier than trying to feed a rat liquid food through a syringe.

I went and got gas before seeing the new volunteer kid and that delay allowed me to see an amazing display of justice or karma or whatever else. Near the edge of town a truck went by me going well over 40mph, then cut in front of me and slowed down to 30mph as we went by a cop who had someone pulled over. Then he sped up again. Just outside of town, going up over a hill and then back down to get to the highway, I would say he was going close to 70mph in a 50mph zone. And then a cop pulled him. It was great. And weird, because I had just been thinking about him needing to be pulled over.

The visit went well itself with the new volunteer kid went well. We started by dropping off a couple job applications. The first to KFC, which lead us on a bit of an adventure just trying to find it. I'm not sure how he got the job application because he didn't know where the restaurant was, but we eventually found it. Thankfully the second job application was for Sonic. After he turned it in we sat there and talked about credit cards and credit scores and debt and all that for awhile before actually ordering drinks and continuing our conversation. He ended up getting the raspberry cherry limeade I got last week and I got a blackberry cherry limeade. They either made two drinks with raspberry or blackberry tastes pretty much the same, because it tasted what I remember last week. Not a bad thing because the raspberry cherry limeade is now my favorite, but interesting.

The sky was really dark in town before I left for the visit and it caught up to me on the way back. Before I could get off the interstate I joined a 15mph caravan with all our hazard lights flashing. I found that the flashing lights were much easier to tell distance by than regular taillights. As soon as I made it to the off ramp for the highway I pulled over to the shoulder with several other cars and parked for several minutes because I could barely make out the hood of my car. There were a lot of cars driving by and I feel safe to say they were all idiots. The rain eventually cleared up enough to start again and I made it onto the highway before it picked up again. Not quite as bad as it was before, and the sky was lighter, but for awhile I slowed down to 30mph and put my hazard lights back on. It took me quite a bit longer to get home but I made it home safely and I didn't have to pee so I wasn't in any hurry.

I spent the rest of my night catching up on YouTube videos and looking at random things on the internet. I was tempted to watch something on Netflix but I want to hold off on that until this cable billing cycle is over because of hitting the bandwidth limit. YouTube videos take up a lot less bandwidth and I fell a bit behind with the massive Battlestar Galactica marathon. Speaking of, once again, I want to go see if I can start renting the series tomorrow so I can listen to the DVD commentaries. I am still thinking about that show a lot.

June 26, 2013

Yesterday morning there was thunder around five o'clock that was so close it sounded like explosions. The only time I have heard it louder was on a campout when it hit so close that the lightning was like a flash grenade and the thunder was instantaneous and deafening.

Another story that I forgot about. There is a kid at work in a wheelchair and he takes a biking/walking trail to get to work. Apparently he is usually fifteen minutes early but the other day he was only a minute early. His excuse was that he was speeding down the trail when he saw a mulberry bush and stopped to pick some berries. Best excuse ever for only being one minute early.

Today at work I did the same thing as yesterday. Doctor Who and cross stitch. I made it to the last side of the last border on my cross stitch. Tomorrow I should be able to finish that and start the letters if I'm still in the mood. I'll be at work for about nine hours so I'll have plenty of time. I would like to do some more reading though. We'll see where the day takes me.

Chipotle was good tonight. I have become accustomed to the medium salsa but it still tastes good. Definitely a good thing when it is something I eat once a week. After dinner I continued watching Battlestar Galactica. I'm a few episodes away from the finale but I probably won't make it there tonight. Not unless I want to be up way later than I should be. I think I have liked and hated every character on the show. I hate their guts and then they do something good so I start to like them, until they start to suck again. Or vice-versa. The show is an emotional roller coaster. I'll be glad when I have finished it though. As long as the ending is decent. Thanks to my massive marathon sessions I have exceeded the internet bandwidth for the month. I'm not exactly sure how far over I can go before bad things happen but I guess we'll find out.

Along the same lines, I have been watching so much Doctor Who that I want to say “oy” and other British things. And I have been watching so much Battlestar Galactica that I have been saying “frak” and “gods damnit” in my head. Hopefully all of that will stay in my head because it would sound weird if I actually said it out loud. 

June 25, 2013

Not much to write about today. At work I spent pretty much the whole time watching Doctor Who and working on my sister's cross stitch. Donna Noble is still my favorite companion of all time and her running into the Doctor for the first time at the office building might be my favorite moment from the entire series.

Tonight I watched Battlestar Galactica, did some laundry, and did not a lot else. I quickly became bored of the entire internet and couldn't read or play any video games because I was more interested in watching the show. And I haven't played a real video game in a long time. I have the desire to but no motivation to actually start one up. I have so many cool games that I have yet to play and it is actually kind of frustrating. I need to come up with a better schedule for my time. I always have the problem of wanting to do everything and end up doing nothing because I'm too busy in my head, thinking about all the things I could be doing. And then the time slowly ticks by and another day is gone. I need to work on a schedule.

I don't know if it was a lack of post-exercise stretching or what but I ended up tweaking my upper back twice today. And it still hurts. It could also be partly due to sitting on a very uncomfortable stool every day. I am hoping that a good night of sleep will make the pain go away. It makes me feel old. I am old.

June 24, 2013

I didn't come anywhere close to waking up early this morning. Technically anyway. I woke up several times, starting before six o'clock, thanks to the dogs barking at absolutely nothing, but I went back to sleep each time. Or at least continued laying in bed, thinking about things.

After lunch I went with my mom to dump off a bunch of cardboard at the recycling place. Then I went to Target and Pet Co, stopping on the way home to mail a letter and schedule a haircut. She was able to get me in about thirty minutes later so I went home for a bit and then went and got my haircut. It was much needed. I don't like the fact that I am losing my hair and that it has thinned out quite a bit on top, but I do like getting my hair cut short. I think it looks better and I can drive with the windows down and it doesn't get messed up. Twenty dollars well spent, although I still think it should go down in price relative to the amount of hair on my head.

When I got home from the haircut, I watched some Battlestar Galactica and eventually ate dinner before going to work. On Battlestar Galactica I made it to season four and finished the first episode, which I believe was a two-parter, hour and a half thing but they bunched it together on Netflix like it was a movie. The show does a really good job of making me really dislike characters but giving them enough redeeming qualities to make me feel sorry for them when they die. It keeps happening over and over again. I think after I finish the series I may watched the failed half season of Caprica. I watched an episode or two of that when it was on TV but I think it will make more sense now that I have seen Battlestar Galactica.

At work I did the same old thing. I forgot to copy the pattern for my sister's name so that was annoying but I was able to finish the border for the first letter. It seems a bit square all on its own so I am going to double check my numbers before I continue.

I continued reading my high school friend's book and I started reading Under The Dome by Stephen King. The previews for the show intrigued me and I figured the book would probably be better. Unfortunately it is over a thousand pages long and I haven't been reading much lately, so there is no way I'll finish it before the show starts, but I'll give it a shot. I've only read one Stephen King book previously, Dreamcatcher, and I liked it so hopefully the same happens here.

I also made it to season four of Doctor Who. But not quite to Donna Noble, just the Christmas episode before season four, with the Titanic and Kylie Minogue. It is a good episode but I don't like how almost all the nice people die and the one asshole (not counting the villain) remained perfectly unharmed. Such a shame.

I got off work early and took the long way home with the windows down and the music up because the weather was amazing (thanks to an incoming storm) and I was in the mood for a drive. Not a long one, but enough of one to feel the wind on my face. It was nice.

June 23, 2013

This morning I stayed in bed and listened to the downpour outside. Then around 9:30AM the downpour turned to thunderous hail. So I got up and took a look outside because my poor car was in the elements. The hail was really only about dime-sized at the most but as it came down it felt like baseballs on my insides. I didn't make it out to check for any hail damage because I still want to be in denial just in case. I'll find out tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Today was a lot of the same. Battlestar Galactica and cross stitch stuff. I touched up my Don't Blink pattern and I might start start working on that one eventually. I did a lot of math for my sister's name, figuring out what size of cloth I needed based on the size of the pattern, the space I want between it and the mat, the size of the map, and enough left over to pull it over some foam board. Her name will end up being about four and a half inches tall and just over twenty-three and a half inches long. Or 72 squares tall and 379 squares long. There is a lot of stitching in my future. I got started on the boarder for the first letter but only finished two sides. It's going to take forever. I need to go through and count out where the vertical lines will be and mark them in advance so I don't have to keep stopping and counting over and over again. I just hope I have counted right so far. It will be a bitch if I haven't.

It does seem to be a sign of crazy but I wish I could have visions that were as vivid as the people on Batlestar Galactica. Preferably in dream-form because I don't want to look like a lunatic talking to myself or looking off in a random direction for no reason. I've nearly made it through the third season now and I really want to know who the five remaining Cylons are. I fear that won't happen until the fourth season. Hopefully not all at once though, I like the slow reveal.

It is only just after midnight but I am surprisingly tired. Tomorrow I want to get up relatively early so I can mail my letter to my friend (I finally got around to scanning it and getting it ready to mail after sitting on it for nearly a month for no reason), schedule a long overdue haircut, and pick up some things at Target. All before work, which isn't until six o'clock, but I am no longer on the early-to-rise schedule.

Lastly, the Irish accent is still probably my favorite.

June 22, 2013

My entire day consisted of watching Battlestar Galactica and working on cross stitch patterns. So exciting. I made my final decision on the alphabet I wanted to use for my sister's birthday present (or Christmas present depending on how long it takes) and I laid it all out in Gimp. The letters are pretty big and intricate so that took forever. And it will take even longer to actually cross stitch it all. But I really do hope I can get it done. I will have plenty of time to work on it at the theater but the real challenge will be maintaining interest in the project. My fingers will be crossed.

I also came up with the pattern for the Don't Blink cross stitch I want to do. I started out trying to make a realistic weeping angel but I quickly realized that it would come out way too big. And I am lacking almost all of the required artistic skill to make happen. So I found a clip art angel and modified it a bit. I might put some more work into it but I'll save that for tomorrow. I went through several different alphabets before deciding on one that I think I can live with. It's one of those fancy ones that are really hard to read. I thought it was fitting because the angels are gothic-like statues and have been around for almost forever.

Battlestar Galactica. The no-corners thing is still annoying. I've noticed that it is not only on paper but also pops up with pictures and video and other stuff. I find it strange. The President is growing on me a little. I used to dislike her entirely but leading up to her almost-death and then after, she has gotten more bearable. I was also getting annoyed with Baltar and his invisible Cylon friend, and I still am a lot of the time, but I think it is interesting that now the Cylon who was with him on Caprica (or the memories of that Cylon that have now been downloaded into a new body) is seeing an invisible Baltar. The invisible Cylon is trying to help Baltar help the Cylons and the invisible Baltar is trying to help the Cylon be less like a Cylon. Sharon is still my favorite Cylon in terms of hotness.

And now I want to go to bed but I just started the season two finale of Battlestar Galactica. So I am going to watch that and go to bed with whatever cliffhanger they throw at me.

June 21, 2013

I ended up sleeping in until close to eleven o'clock today. I woke up numerous times before than but I had absolutely no desire to get out of bed. And it was nice that I didn't have to. It took me awhile but I did eventually manage to go to Hobby Lobby and I bought a whole bunch of string and a bigger piece of cloth. Hopefully I got all the colors of string I need but I won't know for sure until I get around to making the pixel people.

This afternoon I tweaked the bottom half of the Dalek pattern I found and tonight at work I started stitching it. I nearly finished it and I think it looks pretty good but I'll reserve judgment until I get the last row of dots finished. While working on that I continued watching the third season of Doctor Who. Unlike when I gained an appreciation for Rose by re-watching the first two seasons, I still do not like Martha. Or her mother. I don't have a problem with Martha when she isn't pining over the Doctor but that is rare. I can't wait to get to Donna. The last episode I watched tonight was the first appearance of the Weeping Angels. I now want to see if I can cross stitch a Weeping Angel with the words “Don't Blink” under it. It would be cool if I could make a detailed angel but I can see myself just coming up with a plain black one. We'll see. I still need to get a start on my sister's name.

Now I am home and I just finished the season one finale of Battlestar Galactica. Talk about a cliffhanger. I'm just glad I'm not watching it on a week-to-week basis so I don't have to wait to see what happens. The annoying thing about this show is that they do a recap at the beginning of each episode, which gets old pretty quick when I have just watched all the previous things. Also, I'm not a fan of their tank tops on the show. They look like backward girl tank tops. I don't get it.

Anyway, I think I'm going to finish the first episode of the second season and then go to bed. It is really late already but I'm invested. I would like to wake up at a decent time tomorrow so I don't miss out on the majority of one of my days off. We'll see how that goes. My bed seems so inviting in the mornings.

June 20, 2013

Today at work I spent almost the entire time watching Doctor Who and starting a cross stitch of a Dalek. I thought it was appropriate. I finished the top part but ran out of time for the bottom. Which is good because it looks a little weird in the pattern I found and I want to mess around with it a bit and see if I can make it look better. Tomorrow I want to go to Hobby Lobby before work and get more string colors. I found some cool pixel art people and I wanted to start those today but I didn't have nearly enough colors. So that is my goal for tomorrow. I also need to get a bigger piece of cloth for my sister's name. Add that to the goal list.

I just noticed a random cut on the back of my middle finger. No idea on that one.

After work I ate the second half of my Chipotle burrito and then went to hang out with the new volunteer kid. He said he had a good past week because he got to spend five days of it with his friend in town. They spent most of their time swimming and playing video games. Not at the same time of course. We went to Sonic and he hadn't eaten dinner yet so he got some food. I have a bad history with kids eating Sonic burgers in my car. The first volunteer kid spilled fries all the time and onions under his seat. The worst being the ketchup and mayonnaise combo that ended up on the seat belt. The new volunteer kid spilled some crumbs and then an onion under his seat before I pulled out the blanket for him to eat over. Luckily I was able to find the onion but I'm worried about any smelly residue that may have gotten on the carpet. Or more onions that I didn't see fall. Kids are messy and onions are smelly.

I continued my tradition of getting different flavors in my cherry limeades and tonight I got a blackberry cherry limeade. It was really freaking good. I think it may become my new go-to drink at Sonic. I am hoping that it wasn't just a fluke. I'll have to get it a few more times to make sure. I'm tempted to stop the experimenting with flavors but we'll see how I'm feeling next week.

When I got home I watched an episode of Battlestar Galactica and then headed over to my dad's. My sister was able to finish her Father's Day present for him so she texted me to say she was going to go give it to him. We sat out on the back porch for awhile with my dad, uncle, and step-mom, talking about random stuff. It felt really nice to just sit there in the semi-darkness with a nice breeze.

After about half an hour I had to head out to go see This Is The End with my friend, her boyfriend, and her sister (kind of, because she sat in the back of the theater while the rest of us did not). The movie was pretty good. I wouldn't say it was great because there were so many things thrown together but it was really funny and inappropriate at times and I liked it. Michael Cera was briefly funny in the beginning and the ending was entirely epic. I would definitely watch it again.

Now, as per usual, I am going to go to bed. It is late and I want to get up early enough so I can do stuff before I go to work. I have faith in myself.

June 19, 2013

Today at work I did the same thing as yesterday. I finished cross stitching the rose and I think it looks pretty badass. I spent some time looking at cross stitch alphabets but didn't get started on anything new. I think I want to cross stitch my sister's name for her birthday but the alphabet I want to use is huge so I'm going to need to buy a bigger piece of cloth. I'm not sure what I'm going to work on in the meantime. Hopefully something because I am still enjoying cross stitching. I fixed the 3D screen on one of the theaters today. It was too close to the scope lens so whenever it would move up, it would hit the cord in the 3D screen and knock it loose. The 3D screen is mounted on a pole so I was able to use an allen wrench, loosen the pole, and slide the 3D screen a bit farther out. Hooray for productivity. Near the end of my shift my friend stopped by to bring her sister food so I went down and talked to her for awhile. Always good times.

My Chipotle burrito was good tonight. Maybe a little big, even though I only eat half of it at a time, but I always ask for extra rice and beans because when I don't I end up with a burrito that is much too small.

The rest of my night went by way too fast. I have started watching the modern Battlestar Galactica series. The most interesting choices so far are that Starbuck and Boomer are now women. I'm assuming for diversity and because every show needs sexual tension now. I do think the actress who plays Starbuck has done a good job filling that roll. Also, in this far off galaxy, apparently paper can't have corners. Interesting choice.

Tomorrow morning we have a kids show so I have to be at the theater at nine o'clock. Probably a little later but I have no idea when the show actually starts. It's going to be a long day. I need to pick out something to cross stitch.

June 18, 2013

Today at work I repeated my yesterday. I watched Doctor Who, read a book, and nearly finished the rose I am cross stitching. That was a little more of a pain because I forgot my tablet at home so I ended up having to use my phone so the pattern I was working with was much smaller. It worked out though and I made quite a bit of progress. Hopefully I can finish it up tomorrow. There are probably other things I could write about, like some of the projectors and preshows being messed up because of the power outage last night. And accidentally starting the wrong movie. But I don't feel like it.

Tonight I watched YouTube videos, finished the 1980s series of Battlestar Galactica, and looked through a bunch of old cross stitch alphabets. Some of them had really big, super fancy letters, which I think would make a pretty fun project. I still want to make the TARDIS at some point. Battlestar Galactica from the 80s still isn't too great but I would still like to see the three episodes that aren't included in the Netflix list. Maybe the series would make more sense. Like why Commander Adama went from having complete control of his fleet, to spending all of his time listening to a kid called Dr. Z and acting like he could barely handle writing his own name. It will be nice to move onto the modern series. I've heard good things about it so hopefully it lives up to that.

Tomorrow morning I get to wake up early to drag a couch out to the curb. That's going to be fun.

June 17, 2013

Today I did a whole lot of nothing. I didn't make it over to my grandma's but I did get an update. The copper pipe could not be retrieved from the PVC pipe so it was pushed into the main sewer pipe. All the other plumbing was finished, the floor was closed up, and they were at least ready to shim the walls, put in some two-by-fours to attach grab bars to, and install sheetrock and the base of the shower. Not sure how far they managed to get on those last few things.

I spent my day watching YouTube videos and looking through more antique cross stitch books, making some of the patterns in Gimp so I could make them more easy to read. I also finished up the original series of Battlestar Galactica and started the series from 1980. It's kind of a joke. Netflix doesn't have all the episodes so it takes a few episodes to make sense of things. And it will randomly skip episodes which makes it even more confusing. The original series follows the convoy through space after their home planet is destroyed, with the ultimate goal being to reach Earth. In the 1980 series they have found Earth but they discover that Earth isn't advanced enough to fight against the Cylons so I guess the main fleet keeps going in space to keep the Cylons away from the Earth. But it is decided that the kids from the fleet should go to Earth for protection or something. So it seems the series is devoted to the antics that these kids get into because they are super-human due to them growing up in a lower gravity. This apparently allows them to jump forty feet in the air and throw baseballs hundreds of yards or through boards. I'm looking forward to making it to the modern series.

Tonight at work I took a break from obscene cross stitching and started making a rose which I found in one of the antique books. I nearly finished the part. It is looking pretty good so far. I also continued watching Doctor Who, finishing up series one and watching the first episode of series two. Watching series one again gave me a greater appreciation for Eccleston's Doctor but I immediately fell in love with Tennant again. He is so good. I am also like Rose more as a companion. I didn't used to like her but she is growing on me. Donna Noble is still my favorite.

In between all that I started reading the book one of my friends from high school wrote. I only made it a couple chapters in but it is pretty good so far. Her main character is in high school and works at a movie theater, which my friend did in high school, along with me. And one of the characters is a creepy dude with long, greasy black hair named Brian. Who sounds just like the Bryan who was a manager for awhile and everyone disliked him. I can't exactly remember what the book is about, because I got in on my Kindle, but I think it is fantasy related. Regardless, I think it is pretty cool that she wrote a book. And it is apparently volume one so there could be more on the way. Our high school reunion is coming up and if we both end up going I might have to get an actual copy of the book and have her sign it.

June 16, 2013

Most of my day today was spent at my grandma's, watching my uncle work on the shower. The most interesting thing I learned today was about the trap that is right by the shower drain (and possibly all drains?). It is a little U-bend in the pipe that is constantly filled with water. This water prevents gases from the sewer to come out of the drain and stink up the place. This became evident when my uncle was cutting out the pipes and soaked up all the water in the trap with a rag. As soon as the water was gone it immediately smelled like the sewer. I found this to be pretty fascinated and now I am curious about the history of the trap. Did someone purposefully come up with it or was it an accident that lead to innovation? It's cool how simple it is, just water in a pipe, but it is incredibly effective. My dad was saying years ago at work they would occasionally get complaints about rotten smells and it would be from drains that hadn't been used recently and the water in the trap had evaporated. And the fix was to just pour water down the drain.

At one point when my uncle was dry fitting the copper water pipes he pulled them out and a three inch pieces flew off and fell down an inch and a half PVC pipe. It was a one in a million shot but he hit it and it was too far down to reach. His first attempt to get it involved putting some glue on a stick and then putting that down into the PVC pipe and sticking it to the copper pipe. He apparently used the same technique to get a wedding ring out of a drain years ago. It ended up not working so tomorrow they are going to try and fish it out with some wire. If that fails he is just going to push it the last several inches and get it into the main, four inch sewer pipe so it won't cause a problem.

At the end of the day we all went back to my dad's house for dinner. A few hours before I had already gone home and eaten dinner (leftover pizza) but I ate again. It kind of reminded me of when I was a kid and we would have dinner at my dad's house and then go back to my mom's and have dinner again. For my second dinner I went with a roll, two different potato salads, a pickle, green beans, asparagus, and watermelon. It kind of matched my lunch which was just raw vegetables, grapes, crackers, and a gingersnap cookie.

After dinner we sat around the table and talked about various family stories which is always a good time. The most interesting one was actually from lunch. My grandma told us how when she was in fourth grade she made friends with a girl who's father was in town for the year upgrading Highway 40 to gravel. That is crazy. Before that it was a dirt road, which is equally crazy to think about considering it is a highway. She also told us about getting stuck on various roads around town when they were muddy dirt roads. One time going up a hill with a car full of cub scouts. The same hill is paved now but it is still one I avoid when it is snowy because it is still hard to get up. She also told us about the time she went into the ditch when she was on her way to a church meeting and she was trying to read something in her lap for the meeting. In the modern day we have a texting and driving problem, back in the day they had a reading and driving problem.

On my first dinner break I was able to frame the QR code I made for my dad for Father's Day. I then downloaded the barcode scanner on his phone so he could read it. It turned out looking pretty cool so I will call my first cross stitch framing a success.

June 15, 2013

Today seemed to go by pretty fast but I didn't really accomplish much. I ended up going to bed around four o'clock this morning and slept in until 10:30AM or so. Around one o'clock I went over to my grandma's because my dad and uncle were working on replacing her shower. I missed the ripping out of the old shower but I got there just in time to go to the dump with my brother to get rid of it. Then we took a detour on the way back because he wanted to go to GameStop and get Assassin's Creed 3.

By the time we got back my uncle had left to go get lunch and my dad needed to get some stuff from the house so my brother and I ended up going with him to try out Assassin's Creed 3. For a minute I thought maybe I had already played the game because the opening with them walking into a cave reminded me of a previous game. I can't remember which one. Brotherhood maybe. I have several of the game for PC and I need to jump into them at some point. Or any game really. I haven't played video games (not counting on my tablet) in a long time. Mostly because I haven't wanted to but also because my wrist hurts (probably because of all the cross stitching but it is worth it).

After awhile I helped my dad load some wood into his truck and then we headed back over to my grandma's. Just in time to run into my uncle going back to Menard's to get some parts. So my dad and I sat in the living room and talked with my grandma for awhile until I needed to leave for dinner. But right as I was about to leave my uncle texted my dad to see if he could take a couple measurements for him. I helped him with that but as a joke my dad's first text back to my uncle was “They're still the same.” And my uncle texted back “Leaving in the morning, have fun with the shower.” It was pretty funny.

Dinner tonight was finally a pizza night with my mom and sister. Originally we were going to do it last weekend but that ended up not working out. I'll say it was worth the wait though because it was delicious. Artichoke hearts are still my favorite pizza topping.

Tonight I cut out the cross stitch QR code I made for my dad and washed it, after doing a test piece to make sure the colors wouldn't bleed. I'm letting it sit out for awhile and tomorrow I can hopefully frame it without too much difficulty. Just in time for Father's Day.

I spent a significant portion of the rest of my night looking at really really old scans of cross stitch books. My main goal was to find some cool new alphabets, which I did. I have one small book of alphabets but I would like to have a giant one with hundreds of different alphabets. Someday.

Soon I will probably be going to bed. The new shower should be going into tomorrow at my grandma's so fingers crossed I can get over there in time to see that happen. And maybe help out a little.

June 14, 2013

Today I got to sleep in a little bit and then I had a fairly productive day. I started to put my TV wall mount on the wall and that turned into a bit more work than I expected. According to the wall mount, the screws used for the TV base are often also used for the wall mount. That turned out not to be the case with my TV. Luckily the the wall mount came with a bunch of other screws and four of those ended up working but I needed washers for them.

So I made a trip to the hardware store across town. I got the four washers I needed and I also got some extra screws because the ones that fit from the wall mount it seemed a bit small. The screws I got ended up not working out but the washers served their purpose.

While I was on that side of town I also stopped at Hobby Lobby because I needed to get a frame for my dad's cross stitch for Father's Day. I also got some foam board because some of the tutorials I saw used that but I'm afraid it will be too thick for the frame. And I got some more needles and pins, to possibly pin the cross stitch to the foam board, or cardboard if the foam board is too thick. I think tape would hold for awhile because after awhile it would dry out and start to fail. I want to get started on the mounting and framing thing tomorrow. I'll need to try a test piece to make sure the soap I have doesn't doesn't make the threads bleed, and then wash the piece for my dad (and the other ones I have made), let them dry, iron them, and then mount and frame. I'm getting there.

When I got home from that I had just enough time to eat a peanut butter sandwich for a late lunch and then head over to my grandma's to take her to her doctor's appointment. I ended up getting there early so we sat and talked for awhile before leaving. We took her car because it was a little bit taller than mine, and I never quite got used to the touchy acceleration. It was a lot more sensitive than mine so we had a few unintentional fast starts. But we made it to her appointment and back without incident so I'll call it a success.

I wanted to take a nap when I got home but my desire to finish mounting my TV was greater. So I finished that. I got the mount on the wall without a problem before I left for the hardware store so all I had left was getting the TV up there. I misplaced one of the screws I needed but I figured three would be fine in the meantime (and I eventually found the fourth screw). The mount I got thankfully allowed me to rotate it into portrait view so I was better able to hold the TV in one hand and put the screws in with the other. It took a little doing but I managed it and I think it turned out pretty well. It is pretty sweet being able to change it to a third monitor and have YouTube videos up there in fullscreen.

When I had finished that I still had a little time before I needed to eat dinner and go to work so I put up the shelf my mom wanted in her bathroom. She got it last weekend but I wanted to wait until my TV mount came because it shipped with a small level and I wanted to make sure the shelf was level. I downloaded a level app on my tablet but it required a level surface to calibrate it. And I would need a level to find a level surface. So it was kind of a Catch-22. But yeah. I took a bunch of measurements, checked the level, drilled small holes, then drilled bigger holes for the plastic sheet rock screw thingies, pounded those things in with a hammer because I erred on the small side so they weren't too loose, and then screwed the screws in. When all was said and done, it was perfectly level. Well done me.

Tonight at worked I finished a cross stitch and a book, watched a significant chunk of the first series of Doctor Who, and played some games on my tablet, when I wasn't writing this. The book I finished was Speaker For The Dead by Orson Scott Card. It is the sequel to Ender's Game although it is a completely different book. Not just because it is literally a completely different book but because the whole feel of the book is different. Ender's Game is about a kid fighting a war against an alien species. Speaker For The Dead takes place three thousand years later on a small planet where a colony of humans is trying to learn about a pig-like alien race that is also present on the planet. That is a horrible description of the book but whatever. Everyone I know who has read Ender's Game loved it, and everyone else I've heard talk about it for that matter. I thought it was alright but not great. Speaker For The Dead was a better book I think. Even if just by a little bit. The concepts were interesting and it left me wanting to read the next book. Which I probably will. Unless it is completely different from the first two, like the second was from the first. I haven't looked it up yet.

We had a midnight sowing of Man Of Steel, and it is a long-ass movie, so I am still waiting for that to get out. I should be able to go home around 3:00AM. Thankfully I don't have to wake up and come back to work in the morning. I think the work on my grandma's shower is going to start tomorrow and I'm supposed to go over and help, but I am hoping that doesn't happen too early. I need some sleep.

June 13, 2013

Today I had to go into work at 9:00AM for a 10:00AM show. And then a 10:10AM. So I got there, turned everything on, sat around for an hour, watched the movies start, and then had another two and a half hour wait for the next movie. In all the between time I did stuff. I watched the end of Man Of Steel. The special effects were pretty cool and it at least looks like this could be the movie that brings Superman back from movie obscurity. I did realize that I'm not that impressed by cool special effects at the moment. They may look amazing, and get better every year, but at least when it comes to super hero movies, the novelty is being lost. I want humor and good story.

Throughout the day I watched Reaper, read a little, and worked on my latest cross stitch “Handle Your Shit, Lady”. I made it to the 'L' and probably would have finished but I ended up having a couple phone conversations with my friend. He has been having a bad week, from losing his wallet to having a couple chainsaws stolen from his landscaping business, and having the brand new chainsaw break after fifteen minutes. We ended up talking about a bunch of stuff and it was good to hear from him.

After work I ate the second half of my Chipotle burrito and then went to hang out with the new volunteer kid. It ended up being pretty good, hour-long visit. First we dropped off a job application at Subway and then went to Sonic to sit and talk. We talked a lot about food and he mentioned the stuff he liked to eat at his kinship placement and also the food he liked that his dad made. That was the first time in a long while that I have heard him say anything positive about that placement and probably the first time ever that he has said anything positive about his dad. Progress, maybe. As for my drink this week, I got an orange watermelon limeade. It actually wasn't too bad. Better than last week.

A little while after I got home from the visit and I went to hang out with my friend and watch Dexter. We watched that and talked about stuff and she gave me my belated birthday present (three small paintings). I think we have one episode left of whatever season we're on. It's the one with Colin Hanks. I did not see the twist coming at all. Didn't even think about it as a possibility. Way to go writers. I would write more but it is freaking late now and I have been up for almost nineteen hours, without a nap. I'm going to take a really long nap now.

June 12, 2013

My sleeping at night is still an issue. I will be incredibly tired but as soon as my head hits the pillow, a million different thoughts flood my mind. I hope this ends soon.

Today at work was the same as usual. I watched Reaper, read, played games on my tablet, and made a bit of a start on my next cross stitch. I also came up with an idea for a new cross stitch but I need to come up with the design for it. It looks cool in my head, so that's a good start.

After work I went home to change and then went to pick up dinner. I got a parking spot right off the bat at Jimmy John's but it took three passes before I got one at Chipotle. And then had to wait in line. It is going to be a little annoying having to go after work rather than at 5:00PM. But the burrito was good. I am still liking the medium salsa.

After dinner I went over with my mom and sister to see my grandma. My sister is doing a bunch of stuff around the house for her since she broke her leg, one of those things being watering the plants. My grandma has a very particular way of doing it and gets a little frustrated by not being able to do it herself and she becomes a little critical of my sister's technique. Even though she has never killed one of my grandma's plants. So while we sat on the patio and my sister watered, my mom and I kind of ran interference for my sister so my grandma couldn't get on her too badly. It worked and it was good to see my grandma. I might go back over on Friday because my uncle will be back in town and he and my dad are supposed to put in a new shower for her. I think it will be my brother's and my job to take out all the stuff that gets ripped out of the bathroom. As long as we get started early enough because I have to work at six o'clock.

My TV arrived today. I didn't have the time to put up the wall mount but I did set up the TV to check it out. I like it. The bezel around it is so small, about a half an inch, and it looks a lot bigger than 32-inches. And it dwarfs my 24” monitors. I am looking forward to getting it up on the wall but I'm not sure when I'll have the time to do that. If I don't have the visit tomorrow with the kid I can probably do it after work. If not then I'll have to wait until Saturday or Sunday. I also wouldn't mind waiting a couple days just to make sure nothing happens to the TV and that I actually like it. Or more accurately, that nothing is wrong with it. Although it looks fine now. Fingers crossed.

Now I might read a little and then try to go to bed. We have an early show tomorrow at work so I have to be there at 9:00AM. Probably later actually but I don't know what time the movie actually starts so I'll just show up at 9:00AM. Which really isn't that early, at least compared to my school year schedule, but I am fully steeped in my summer schedule, so it is kind of early now, especially with my sleeping issues as of late. I'll survive.

June 11, 2013

How quickly I remember how awful summer is at the theater in terms of working in the attic. There is really only air conditioning on one side and even then it can only be felt when standing directly under the vents. On the hot end it was close to 90 degrees. I'm not looking forward to the days when it is over a hundred degrees outside because it will be nearly as hot, and stagnant, inside.

Despite being constantly sweating or on the verge of sweating, I had a decent day at work. I finished my cross stitch finally. I thought about starting “Handle Your Shit, Lady” but I needed a break. And I'm not sure if that is the next one I want to start. I kind of want to pick something simple to knock it out. Maybe the little Doctor Who and TARDIS. I also finished up season one of Reaper and started on season two. And read more from my book.

When I got home I had dinner, watched some E3 coverage, did some laundry, took a shower, and had some popcorn while watching YouTube videos. Not an exceptional night but they rarely are. My days are completely thrown off now that I am at the theater more than just Friday and Saturday. The calender tells me tomorrow is Wednesday but it seems like it should be a weekend. That is unfortunate but hopefully I can do something productive with my time at work. Regardless, I should have a new TV waiting for me when I get home. Fingers crossed.

June 10, 2013

Sleeping has not been so great the past couple of nights. I'm not sure exactly why but it has taken me a long time to fall asleep and then I end up waking up several times throughout the night. It kind of sucks.

Before work today I didn't have too much going on. My sister stopped by and I drilled a couple holes in the new bird feeder she got and put some dowels in it for the birds to perch on. I also worked a tiny bit on my cross stitch. And I made a giant pattern for my “Home Sweet Home” QR code and messed with the colors for it. I found out that the code doesn't have to be black so I think it would be cool to make one with a bunch of different colors. I can't really remember anything else of importance.

At work tonight I watched Reaper, read my book, and worked on my cross stitch. Making the outline for the figure with only half stitches was probably the dumbest decision I have made in awhile. Yesterday I had to pull out half of it because I went one square too far and it messed up everything after it. Today I started that second half again, doing full stitches this time, and got about three-quarters of the way done when I realized I was still a square off somewhere. I slowly went through each stitch and eventually found it about a quarter of the way from the start. So I tore everything out again and started from the beginning, doing full stitches. Good grief. I should have been done with the whole thing a long time ago. By the end of the night I managed to finish the outline and got a few rows of the inside done. Slow progress. I should be able to finish it tomorrow at work. Hopefully.

June 9, 2013

Not a lot going on today. I spent more time looking at possible new phone options. I think I may be able to buy a cheap pre-paid phone but put my SIM card in it and use it on my current plan. I'm also thinking about the possibility of getting one of the cheap Chinese clone phones that look like the expensive ones but cost around $150 rather than $400-$600. As long as it can handle the occasional phone call and text message, and take a decent picture, that's all I care about.

I did end up buying the TV I have been looking at. It dropped down $30, which is good considering it is pretty new, and I figured Amazon's return policy is a lot easier than anywhere else I would get it, so I went for it. Hopefully it's not a lemon because it would be kind of a pain in the butt to box it back up and send it back.

I made some progress on my cross stitch. I finished the last word and moved onto the body. The head was easy but then I made the ballsy move of doing an outline of the body, using only half of the cross stitch. That makes it really hard to keep track of where the squares will be, and I knew it would be unforgiving if I made a mistake and didn't catch it in time, but I thought it would be nice not having to constantly check my pattern if I had the outline. Well, One of the legs came out looking kind of skinny but rather than take the time to count squares, I kept going, and counted when I was done with the whole outline. And That is when I confirmed my mistake around the leg, which was about halfway back through the outline, and it couldn't be fixed by just adding a stitch here and there, so I had to tear out half of my progress. That sucked some balls but I knew it was a risk when I started. I should be able to finish it tomorrow, maybe.

June 8, 2013

This morning my phone was acting up. I got a notification that I had missed a call but the call never came through. It was my dad so I tried to call him back but my phone wouldn't open the calling function of my phone. And my text messenger also wouldn't load. So I emailed him. And eventually I was able to send him a text message using my tablet. But he was calling me about spraying ants at my grandma's house and by the time he got my messages he had finished the job. Kind of a fail. My phone sucks. I have long passed the break-even point on the phone (where it made more sense to pay full price for the phone and $10 less a month rather than pay significantly less for the phone but $10 more a month).

So I am thinking it is time to get a new phone. One that doesn't suck. But, in general, I don't want a phone. It was nice having it turned off for however long it was I had it turned off. If I'm not initiating contact with people, I rarely hear from them, making the $70 a month I pay for a phone seem like way too much. But the cheapest plan is only $10 cheaper, which adds up, but it is kind of a worthless plan. It would be much better to just not have a phone. Though I don't think it is worth all the nagging I got when my phone was turned off. So there is a good chance I could be dropping hundreds of dollars on a new phone in the near future, and completely hating the fact that I am doing it. I am annoyed by all of it.

I spent a lot of my day watching MacGyver and Sons Of Tucson and working on my cross stitch. By the time I called it good for the day I had finished three of the four words, leaving me with 'TRIPPIN' and the stick figure. Hopefully I can finish that soon.

I also watched 180° South and a National Geographic show on Redwoods. I actually have the issue somewhere that covered Redwoods and I always wondered how they got the giant foldout picture of the Redwood tree. Turns out it was a camera that they slowly lowered from the top of the tree, taking pictures as it went, and then digitally stitching them together. Makes sense. Both the documentary and the show made me realize how much I miss camping and being outside. Anyone who currently knows me probably thinks this sounds ridiculous because I am pale as a ghost and spend all my time inside, but do really love the outdoors. I want to go hiking and camping and go on adventures, I just don't have the motivation or initiative to do it alone. I need friends. I need a group of friends that will go on outdoor adventures with me. I also need a group of friends that I can play video games with. And for either of those I need to be more outgoing, which I'm not. I want to do everything, which is overwhelming, so I do nothing, and life is passing me by. It sucks more than a little.

Tonight I watched Safety Not Guaranteed. I like the dude from New Girl and I like Aubrey Plaza most of the time, though her acting range isn't that great. I didn't really know what to expect from the movie but I ended up really enjoying it. Helped greatly by the fact that they went for it with the ending. It would have tanked the movie for me if they hadn't.

I don't work tomorrow so it would be cool if I could finish my cross stitch. At some point before Father's Day I need to at least cut out and clean the QR code for my dad and then figure out how to frame it. I'm hoping that doesn't become a whole big thing. If it goes smoothly, that would be great.

June 7, 2013

I messed around with emulators again today. I tried one for the Nintendo DS and got Animal Crossing but it was way too laggy. Then I tried one for the original Gameboy and played a little Mario. It was fun but it was kind of hard without physical buttons. I kept missing jumps because I would move my finger slightly and miss the button. I didn't play any Harvest Moon but so far that has been the best ROM I have tried.

I watched a lot of MacGyver today. Still a great show. Not much else to say about that.

I can't really remember anything else I did today. I'm sure there was something but it is escaping me at the moment.

Eventually I went to work. I continued watching the first season of Reaper, making it to the third disc. I also added two and a half letters to my cross stitch and read a couple chapters in my book. Progress. During the last set I watched The Internship. Classic Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson. Overall, I liked the movie. I think more so than the audience who paid to see it in the theater I was standing in. I need to watch it with a bigger crowd. Laughter is contagious and comedies are so much better with a bigger crowd.

This has been a fairly disappointing entry. I need to do more with my days. And my life. At least I always leave room for improvement. Lots of improvement.

June 6, 2013

I did stuff today but I don't have much to write about. I avoided cross stitching today. I needed a break. Still trying to get over the setback of having to rip out an entire letter yesterday. Let's hope I can get back into it tomorrow.

I didn't watching any Battlestar Galactica today but I did start watching MacGyver and Sons Of Tucson. MacGyver has really held up for me. Not so much with the special effects when it comes to green screens or crash test dummies in cars, but everything else. It still makes me want to be a Boy Scout and go to MIT. At least I accomplished one of those things. As for Sons Of Tucson, it is still really funny and it makes no sense that it was canceled. They somehow managed to find three kids that were all decent actors (four if you count the friend) and the main dude (Tyler Labine) is always funny. It's a good show to watch when you want to laugh and get pissed off at the same time. The pissed off part because it was canceled. At least Reaper got two seasons.

While I watched that stuff I worked on downloading an emulator onto my tablet. Awhile ago I borrowed Animal Crossing for DS from a friend and got sucked into that for weeks. I was looking up similar games for Android and didn't really see any that jumped out at me but I did stumble across Harvest Moon: Back To Nature, which was on the original Playstation. I had heard of Harvest Moon before but never gave it much thought. Until today. It took me awhile to get an emulator that would run the ROM of the game, and even when I got one it wasn't an official version so the sound doesn't work and a message pops up every thirty seconds or so in the middle of the screen reminding me the license check failed. But I got to try out the game and it is very similar to Animal Crossing but a little more involved. The official version of the emulator I need is about four dollars, which about what I pay for PC games these days, so it seems like a lot, but it really isn't. But I'm going to keep messing around with the game and see if it draws me in and then maybe I'll think about dropping some money for the emulator.

I finally had a visit with the new volunteer kid tonight. It was only a thirty minute visit because the kid wanted to go fishing but it was a good visit. We talked to one of the girls there briefly that the kid has a crush on. He is very awkward around her, kind of like a teenage boy. I got an orange vanilla limeade and it was less than great. The girl finally confirmed my suspicions that Sonic limeades are made with Sprite, so maybe a plain orange vanilla Sprite would be better, without the lime. I don't know. I doubt it. I'm not sure which flavor to get next. I want to stumble onto something amazing but I'm not sure that can happen at Sonic.

Tonight I watched Room In Rome, which on the surface was lesbian softcore with two women who were naked for most of the movie. But, despite that, it was actually a really interesting movie and the music was also really good. The women start the night telling lies about themselves, not wanting to reveal their true identity to each other because they had just met at a bar. But throughout the night they slowly reveal bits and pieces about their lives and who they really are and in doing so, reveal things to themselves. I liked it, and I can honestly say I would have if they had kept their clothes on. The whole movie takes place in one small hotel room and just the two actors (with brief appearances by the hotel staff guy) and the story was engaging the whole time. I'm actually not a big fan of movie sex because I end up just thinking about how awkward it must be to shoot that stuff, and in this movie I found myself wanting that stuff to go by faster so they could get back to the story. In a way it kind of reminded me of my favorite Doctor Who episode, where the entire episode takes place in small train cabin but they cover the whole range of emotions and it keeps you engaged even though it is just one small set. So yeah, I liked it, even though the ending was mildly devastating.

While I watched that I worked on some pixel art that may someday become a cross stitch. It was of Ruby Gloomy's head. At some point I intend to do the rest of her but I probably won't get around to that. Ruby Gloomy is a cartoon that I watched one episode of yesterday and it was alright but not great. It probably gets better but I wasn't really in the mood for cartoons at the time, as it turned out. But I like the look of the cartoon and I wanted to see if I could recreate Ruby's face. I think I did a half-way decent job. Even if we forget I'm biased. We'll see what I think when I see it tomorrow.

And now, much like most of my days recently, it is late, so I am going to go to bed. And hopefully sleep past 8:20AM if Tanner decides not to bark. At least the past two days he has started randomly barking at 8:20AM and it is getting old.

June 5, 2013

Today seemed to just kind of happen. I worked on some cross stitch stuff and watched all thirteen episodes of Running Wilde. It was kind of a spiritual successor to Arrested Development, not only because it starred Will Arnett and for an episode had his dad from Arrested Development playing his dad (which included some other references and a music clip) but it really smart writing. Not to the depth of Arrested Development but still really fun to watch. It really sucked when it got canceled. At some point I also want to watch Sons Of Tuscon, which was another really funny show that only lasted for thirteen episodes. I don't understand how FOX manages to get all these good shows and then constantly moves them around before finally canceling them. I like the Netflix model of filming an entire season and then releasing it all at once. At the very least you are guaranteed a full season.

At Chipotle tonight I got the medium salsa. I generally always get the corn because it is familiar and wasn't too spicy unless I bit into a pepper. But it also got old a long time ago. So last week I tried the mild salsa, which looks like pico de gallo. I've only ever had it one other time, when my friend's mom made it, and I really liked it, so I figured I would give it a shot at Chipotle. It was decent but every now and then it tasted too much like fresh tomatoes. I went with the medium tonight, crossing my fingers that it wasn't too spicy, and it ended up being really good. My new favorite. Oddly enough it kind of tasted like the sloppy joes my grandma used to make. I think I will start getting it on a regular basis and hope tonight wasn't just a fluke.

Tonight I made no real progress on my new cross stitch. Earlier in the day I managed to get the first three letters and tonight I added a fourth. Only realizing when I was done that the fourth letter was a square too high. So that really sucked. All of that work and I don't have anything to show for it.

While I was working on that I started watching the original Battlestar Galactica. I always wanted to watch the modern show but figured I might as well start at the beginning. I made it six episodes in and I am actually liking it so far. The special effects and alien costumes are awful but it is thirty-five years old. But it is just the right level of cheesy. It is also cool recognizing old actors. Rick Springfield was in about half of the first episode and Jane Seymour was in several episodes. Hopefully I can make it up to the modern series.

Now I am going to go to bed. Before this I finished my monthly report for my volunteer thing so I don't have to worry about that tomorrow. My goal is to add at least a few more letters to my cross stitch. It actually went decently fast today when I wasn't running into knots or having to undo an entire letter. If I finish this cross stitch I want to make some more QR code ones and a Doctor Who one. After that I can move onto some of the other phrase ones I think would be funny. Or come up with something entirely different. I like making patterns so I might mess around with that some more.

June 4, 2013

Most of my day was spent working on cross stitch stuff. I made several patterns in Gimp and looked up different ideas online. This afternoon I went to Hobby Lobby to get some more string and fabric, and when I got home I started on my dad's Father's Day present. My goal was to cross stitch a QR code of his name because for his birthday (I think) I made him his name in Braille, and I figured I would continue the tradition. Even though it is fairly small it ended up taking me all night to finish. Mostly because cross stitching is pretty tedious, but it didn't help that I caught several mistakes later than I should have and had to pull out a lot of stitches every time. The good thing is that I did find the mistakes though, so I was able to fix them. And the best part is that the code actually scans and pops up with his name. This way he won't just have to take my word for it.

I completely made it through my Watch Later playlist on YouTube today and tonight while working on my cross stitch I went back to Netflix. I started with Haywire. Good grief. If ever there was a movie that was an hour and a half too long, it was Haywire. It just wasn't good. The music was kind of upbeat and almost jaunty, like what you would hear in Ocean's 11 or something. But this wasn't a humorous caper, it was supposed to be a revenge thriller. I think. The main girl, who I think is a professional fighter and the movie was written for her, starts the movie by beating the crap out of Channing Tatum and then running off a random dude. She then proceeds to tell this random dude her entire life story, which involves secret government contractor stuff. This is in the present and most of the movie is a flashback leading up to her current predicament. But we are never given a reason to actually care about her or anything that may happen to her. It was a bunch of dialogue with the occasional “realistic” fight scene. And I say “realistic” because it was mostly quiet with a lot of heavy breathing. So yeah, it sucked and the only reason I continued watching it was because I was more focused on my cross stitch.

After that I watched The Final Countdown. An 80s movie with Martin Sheen and Kirk Douglas. The USS Nimitz is mysteriously transported back to the day before Pearl Harbor. Then some stuff happens and eventually the mysterious storm appears again, right before the 80s jets can attack the Japanese Zeros. It was all a bit anticlimactic. There was some brief discussion about the implications of interfering with history but overall the movie amounted to a lot of nothing. So it really wasn't a good night for movies. But I finished my cross stitch, so it was a productive night.