Well, I'm about a third of the way through the game note transcription

and I took out the trash, did dishes, did laundry, and spent some time on a massage cushion/heating pad to help my back/neck/shoulder relax. I'm going to go on to bed now. If I manage to do about as much on the notes as I did tonight I could have them done by Thursday or Friday at the latest, leaving me Saturday morning to do more laundry and clean the bathroom, hang the new shower liner, do the kitchen, and mop the floors. Wish me luck.

Also, I think I'm going to start setting the alarm for 7 am in the hopes of getting up at 8 so that I can actually have some time to ease into the day rather than the normal jump up and go. I think it would help my productivity at work. Plus, I can eat breakfast earlier and take my medicine, etc. before I get there, plus check the news and maybe blog, which I usually don't get to do until late at night. (I'm not allowed to blog from work.)

Okay, good night. It turned out to be a decent second-half-of-the-day after all. Hopefully tomorrow will be better at work. I think when it comes down to it, my reactions to things was the problem. Fortunately I wasn't bitchy or impolite. I was just down. I should be back to my old self tomorrow.

This will be either very fun or very dumb and bad

Thanks to YKWIA for telling me about it.

On my afternoon/evening off so far I have:

1. Taken a nap.
   
2. Researched a couple of things for a friend, including something that the public library couldn't find for him (but which I did, yay!) I think he likes having his own personal librarian.
   
3. Transferred over the game recording off the digital voice recorder to be transcribed.
   
4. Made coffee to fortify me.
   
5. Cooked some basmati rice and put it in the refrigerator for tomorrow's supper (tomorrow on the lunch menu is a spinach frittata and breakfast, so I'm looking forward to that).
   
6. Washed a sink full of dishes. I have a small drainer, so there are a few left. I'll let the wet ones dry for awhile and then if they haven't completely dried in an hour or two, I'll wipe them down and finish the others.
   
7. Put in a load of laundry in the laundry room under the leasing office. It should get me to Saturday morning, when I plan to do more, but I just have the money to do one tonight. Fortunately I'll have a repayment go through tonight, an automatic pay deposit go through tonight, and another on Wednesday night.
   

Now I need to work on the notes while the clothes are washing and drying. I'll take the trash out (not much, yay!) out when I go to change to the dryer. I'll try to go to bed around midnight or 1 am.

I'm glad to have the night off. I wasn't sure I would be since a co-worker was out sick over the weekend and it was up in the air as to when he would return. Tonight was truck night. I hope they did alright--I think it was just the two of them.

Okay, off to do notes, or at least get a good start on them.

Oh, I forgot, one more good thing

I sent off a couple of books through PaperbackSwap a few days ago, and one person got one already and gave me credit, so I ordered Stephen R Donaldson's Runes of the Earth from the third Thomas Covenant trilogy. This was the book I never got back in November-December when the sender asked for delivery confirmation, I wasn't home, only to be redelivered without success about a month later, and the post office sent it back the next day. Now I'm using my work address because there is someone who receives the mail and that takes care of any delivery confirmation issues. The simple fact of the matter is that I am rarely home during the day, although I've had notices left before when I was home on a Saturday morning. I don't think they ever think to actually ring my doorbell.

Anyway, I received notification today that it has been mailed to me and is winging its way here. I'm eager to read it because 1) I really liked the first two trilogies, and 2) I have the second book but not this one, the first. Yay!

A rather bad day

Nothing earth-shattering, really, and the first one I've had in a good long while. It was mostly a string of annoyances and frustrations, and I think my tolerance for such was low today.

First of all, I was late to work because I overslept, despite getting home at 11 pm last night and falling to sleep in the comfy chair within about a half-hour, then moving to the bed a little after 2 am.

Also, my shoulder, neck, and back are hurting from moving comic boxes from one closet to another for a friend yesterday. I know that will probably resolve on its own, but I'm stiff and not feeling so great as a result.

The next was my fault. Yesterday I called in a problem with our colour copier where it wasn't stapling correctly. The tech thought it was the paper (a popular thing to blame, I've noticed) but was still working on it when I left. My boss called me while I was at Kroger and asked me where the toner was for that machine, since the tech had said it was empty. The machine had not indicated it was low before I called for service, so that was a surprise. But regardless, I had forgotten to order toner after I put the last one in and so they had to put an order in. Unlike our last contract, when we got toner and other supplies within a day, it will take 3-5 days for this to arrive. So that was my bad, and as a result, the copier is down for awhile. There's another copier in the library, but it is black and white.

Then there was a patron who asked where an article was and it turned out I'd put the fax on his desk but he apparently lost it or otherwise didn't see it. So I had to order it again. Fortunately I got it today.

I've received quite a few donations lately and I'm running out of room. My boss is wanting me to find somewhere to store some boxes that are in the library because it looks cluttered. I'll probably have to throw some things out; there's just so little storage room since they took my closet away and made it into an office.

That was how work went. Then I stopped by the bank and discovered that although I can use my cheques still, my routing and account numbers have changed and I have to fill out the new bank's deposit slips. Looking up the accounts, filling out the slip, etc., took me out of line for about 10 minutes, and then I had to wait behind several people. I was polite, but annoyed. The transition from my old banking system and the one that acquired it has mostly been smooth, but this was a speed bump. It did make things faster at the counter, though, but I think I spent more time overall preparing for my transaction than I would have if I'd just walked up with my chequebook's deposit slips.

Someone came bearing down on me when I crossed the street that runs through the car lot, but stopped before they hit me.

It started raining just as I was in sight of my apartment complex with bags in my hands so I couldn't use my umbrella. To be fair, though, it stopped before I got to my apartment.

There are some good things about today, however:

1. Lunch was nice, especially for cafeteria food. I had pasta with spinach and sun-dried tomatoes, with broccoli on the side.
   
2. I'm off today from the store, and have the afternoon and evening to myself. :)
   
3. Except for a few afternoon sprinkles, the weather has been beautiful.
   
4. I'm looking forward to reading a little, although I really do have to do laundry and the dishes that are in the sink that can't go through the dishwasher.
   

Hopefully the night will go well and I'll recover. I'll probably write later, but for now the rain is making me sleepy and I think I'm going to take a nap.

Strangest news story I've heard in awhile

This time from Florida.

Megan Barnes Driving While Shaving! Fla. Woman Arrested After Crash, Grooming "Bikini Area" Say Cops

She had her ex-husband take the wheel from the passenger seat and they crashed into a pickup, then went another half mile before stopping. This happened one day after being convicted of driving under the influence and she was driving on a revoked licence. Why was she shaving her delicate bits whilst driving? She was on her way to her boyfriend's home and, as YKWIA put it when he told me about this story, 'wanted a clean working surface'.

She should never get her licence back, ever, and her ex-husband should be prosecuted, too.

Weird and dangerous, that's what they are.

Hopefully there will be some justice served

Funeral Flap: Justices Weigh Religion, Speech Rights

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to delve into the sensitive question of whether the First Amendment protects anti-gay protesters carrying placards outside military funerals, bearing “America is Doomed,” “Thank God for 9/11″ and other volatile slogans, like “Thank God for dead soldiers.”

The messages and picketing are part of a Kansas church’s belief that the United States’ tolerance for homosexuality is cause for soldiers’ deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The case the justices decided to review Monday tests the boundaries of free speech versus freedom of religion — doctrines both embodied in the First Amendment.

This practice is despicable, particularly because the soldiers involved aren't even remotely related to any issue of homosexuality. The protesters are causing undue stress and emotional harm to the families of men and women who died in service to our country. In my opinion, this crosses a line that goes beyond freedom of speech or religion, for that matter, but is simply impinging upon the rights of families to bury their loved ones in peace.

One court agreed with me, and awarded a $5 million judgment against Rev. Phelps' Kansas church in favour of the father of a slain soldier, but it was overturned on appeal. Now the case goes before the Supreme Court. I hope it reverses the appellate court decision--giving others the ability to also sue the church and win. I don't believe that hate speech is protected by our First Amendment rights, but even if it were, there's something to be said for fighting it with bankruptcy. Unfortunately, you can never stamp out hate speech, for it is virulent and spreads like a plague through people who are 1) lacking in knowledge and 2) lacking in human sympathy for others. Instead they try to foist their radical beliefs onto others in new and innovative ways, such as protesting at military funerals. Personally, I think they should not only be barred from doing so, but prosecuted criminally if they continue, rather than making it a civil case.

Please, Justices, give these families peace to bury their dead. Condemn the Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka's practice of crashing funerals and make sure no other family has to deal with such insensitivity during their time of pain.

A great Cthulhu game

Me: Do you ever wonder why we do this on a weekly basis year in and year out?
Brenda: The same reason I bike 30 miles a day; I'm a masochist.

It's kind of funny when you have a character that not only took a dagger to the eye, was subject to a spell where she was cooked from the inside out, and then trampled by a bunch of people turning on their dark lord, but you consider it a good gaming session because it ended with the great evil averted and the evil cultist ripped to shreds by his own minions.

It's pretty exhilarating; that's one reason to do it. And it's fun, and it's my main social outlet, sacrosanct (I will not work on Sundays because of it.) But my character, an immortal (as in will not age and die, rather than able to take a licking and keep on ticking) necromancer, is barely clinging to life--and I'm somehow okay with this, because we succeeded in our mission. I know, it's crazy, but hey, some people have stranger hobbies.

When rhinos get angry

The Hulk has nothing on a charging rhino. See this reconstruction of an experience a film crew had out in the bush.

#1 commodity at the store today: car washes

Today was the first really pretty day we've had in a good while, sunny and in the 50s, with better weather forecast for tomorrow. So, lots of people came in asking for car washes, and I only had to reset it once.

It was a pretty good night. A strange thing happened though. I found the following fortune cookie fortune interspersed with my $1 bills:

Before you wonder 'Am I doing things right,' ask 'Am I doing the right things?'

I'm thinking the universe might be trying to give me a nudge. I do try to be a good person and do the things I know are right, but sometimes I slip for convenience's sake. I haven't had a great history of standing up for my principles, mainly because I am so passive, and that of course is a weakness. But I have grown a backbone at some point and use it occasionally, as needed. I just need to learn to use it whenever it is warranted. :)