Knowing where you stand is nice, even when you don't like where you are.

It's looking like the mail room may have lost my rent check. I just got an email saying I haven't paid yet - but I did. Grrrrrrr.

Edit: The mail room was not at fault, for once. Facilities did receive the check, but forgot to enter it into the computer. At least that problem is solved now.

Sims 2 is highly addicting. For my own sake, I'm going to have to try to limit my playing to weekends or something, otherwise all real productivity will cease.

Every time I've played a version of Sims, I've always tried to make a normal, successful, well-balanced Sim. Today I created Chris Emo, however. Painfully shy, quite serious, nice, super-neat (if there's nothing else to do, he takes out the trash), and romantic aspirations. I was thinking the shyness and romance would contradict each other, but I guess he's not shy enough. Mr. Emo swept 3 girls off their feet, managing to seduce one. With this success rate, he's not going to get any quality song material soon. At least he has his day job.

The Sleater-Kinney show was really good. Siyuan and I arrived early, so we were pretty close to the stage, which was cool. I am now sweaty, tired, and dehydrated, however. Must drink lots of water...

I've been feeling pretty out of it for the past few days. Came home right after work yesterday and took a long nap. When I woke up around 9ish, I went up to see Ken and Alex and place my lunch order for Baja Fresh, and they gave me leftovers from dinner. Yay. Today at lunch I at aforementioned Baja Fresh and watched a little kid do lots of backflips. It was impressive. Took another nap after work and going to the co-op, then managed to make myself go to the pool. I saw for about 45 min, then hung out with people and hit a beach ball around.

Tomorrow: Sleater-Kinney concert(!), and my copy of Sims 2 should also be arriving.

Fought a losing battle with the basement freezer in which I tried to regain possession of my sorbet (nowhere to be found). I barely succeeded in the battle to close the door and not have it pop back open. My fingers are cold, and I am still without frozen treats. Grr. Now is the time when I really wish my freezer actually kept ice cream and such cold. It's fine with other things, but not ice cream. It can handle Klondike Bars (barely), but that's the extent of its skills. Of course, there's probably a very high correlation (and most likely a causation) between the lack of ice cream available to me and the fact that the jeans I recently bought are now rather loose...

Cillian Murphy: damn good-looking when not super-creepy as Dr. Crane/Scarecrow. And his eyes are not as insanely blue as they are in Batman Begins, which is comforting. No one should have eyes that blue naturally - it's disconcerting. He and Christian Bale are both married and vegetarians. *sigh* I just want a pretty single boy to share a steak with, is that too much to ask?

Back to looking up what movies McCabe has that I want to see. (Cillian is in Girl with a Pearl Earring, which led to me looking up what else he's been in, which led to the various other information in this post.)

I have a bit of a song stuck in my head, but I have no idea what song it is, what the lyrics are, or who it's by. It is a bit annoying.

Watched Amelie last night - it was very good. I started to watch Chocolat, and got about halfway through, but then there was a bit of technical difficulty. I'm sure McCabe probably has it, so I'll check it out on Monday and watch it then. What I saw I really enjoyed, so I was sad that I didn't get to see the rest.

I finished reading A Clockwork Orange last night. It was good, though I'm not sure how I feel about the last chapter, which isn't in the movie and wasn't in the original American version (but was always in the British version). That's the second book I've read this week (the first being High Fidelity), and the next one to be read is Fight Club. Then perhaps I will move on to books that have not been made into movies.

According to their websites, neither Target nor Best Buy seem to have Sims 2 for Macs. *grumble* Therefore, I cannot convince myself to make the 30 minute walk to buy the other things I was going to pick up, because none of them are really essential. I will instead order Sims 2 online, hope it comes quickly, and spend the rest of the day reading A Clockwork Orange.

Saw Batman Begins, which was quite good, with the added bonus of Christian Bale being as gorgeous as ever.

In bad news, my cell phone is on the fritz again, randomly turning off and being grumpy. Also, what Jessica Simpson did to "These Boots Were Made for Walking" is a crime. Nancy Sinatra doesn't even get the privilege of rolling over in her grave -- instead, she gets to live in this hell. Because you know that the song will be popular, if only because of the scantily cladness in the video.

Bed soon, Target tomorrow -- I'm going to treat myself and Athena to Sims 2 in honor of her being fully functional.

My computer is back, with a working trackpad, so that's good. The guy also discovered an extra 256 MB of RAM that I didn't know I had. Sadly, it wasn't installed correctly or was screwed up, so he removed it. However, I'm not sure why it was even there in the first place. I certainly didn't put it there, and when I bought the computer from Apple, it was supposed to have 256, not 512. But I bought a refurbished computer, so maybe the previous owner had put it there and Apple just didn't notice. Not really sure.

Anyway, now that my computer is back, I'm going to go catch up on webcomics and such. Yay!

As I plan to take my dear Athena (aka my laptop) in tomorrow (to finally get the trackpad fixed), I have reverted back to traditional sticky notes to remind me what I need to do. Because of this, there is a strip of neon orange across my desk, reminding me to do things like pay for housing, start looking into internships for next year, balance my bank accounts, etc. They're harder to ignore than the virtual version, which is probably for the best. Having my computer gone for a few days will be tough but probably (hopefully) result in me being productive. This will of course be countered by when I get my computer back, as I plan on going out and buying Sims 2 very soon.

Now to bed.

Random nice thing as aftermath of Saturday night: in the basement kitchen, washing dishes. Guy who I've seen around the library (he works in circ) comes to use the sink. He asks me how I'm doing, shares his own drinking horror story, we chat. I now feel less asocial, which is nice. It's easy to get into a bubble where you don't meet new people, and having that bubble broken now and then is a very good thing.

I have created my own pet project at work, which I'll work on in the little bits of time I have between bigger jobs -- cleaning up/organizing the comics section. Someone donated his comics collection a few years back, and they're all in the old coffee bar area. They are not very organized, since people pick them up, leaf through them, and toss them anywhere. There are also some graphic novels there (maybe half of what McCabe has?) in no particular order. It is painful to see the disarray, and this will also let me see what sort of comic selection McCabe has.

This area is also where the popular novels, etc. are kept. These are apparently done through a borrowing service, and we only add a fraction of them to the permanent collection. Anyway, I went through those today, pulling some off the shelves to get sent back or moved up to the normal stacks. I also alphabetized the books as I did this. When 2 of my bosses learned of this, they laughed and said I was definitely a librarian. Comments like this are becoming more common, it seems.

I drug myself to the gym today and worked out for about 30 minutes. I've decided to go back to the M, W, F weight-lifting plan, with maybe running on T and Th. It's too hot to run a lot, and since taiko isn't hurting my arms as much (knock on wood), I should be okay lifting weights before and after.

Time to make some dinner.

After hearing this song on the radio a few times, as well as seeing the video, I give up. What the hell is this song about?! I thought actually looking at the lyrics might help, but no. Well, the spelling of "bananas" makes a bit more sense now, but that's about it.

Uh huh, this my shit
All the girls stomp your feet like this

A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just goin' to happen like that
Because I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl
[2x]

Oooh, this my shit, this my shit [4x]

I heard that you were talking shit
And you didn't think that I would hear it
People hear you talking like that, getting everybody fired up
So I'm ready to attack, gonna lead the pack
Gonna get a touchdown, gonna take you out
That's right, put your pom-poms down, getting everybody fired up

A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just goin' to happen like that
Because I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl
[2x]

Oooh, this my shit, this my shit [4x]

So that's right dude, meet me at the bleachers
No principals, no student-teachers
All the boys want to be the winner, but there can only be one
So I'm gonna fight, gonna give it my all
Gonna make you fall, gonna sock it to you
That's right, I'm the last one standing, another one bites the dust

A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just goin' to happen like that
Because I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl
[2x]

Oooh, this my shit, this my shit [4x]

Let me hear you say, this shit is bananas
B-A-N-A-N-A-S
[4x]

A few times I've been around that track
So it's not just goin' to happen like that
Because I ain't no hollaback girl
I ain't no hollaback girl
[2x]

Oooh, this my shit, this my shit [4x]

Gwen Stefani, you make no sense to me.

Last night? Never doing that again. I have confirmed what I always thought - drinking that much only leads to badness. So let's just chalk this up to a learning experience and move on, shall we? Many thanks to Jamison, Kyle, Emily, and whoever else helped me out (because yeah, there's a lot of fuzziness) - especially Kyle and Emily. Thanks guys. And yes, Mom, I'm okay.

The real question, though, is why I randomly woke up at 6:30 am...

Saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith - it was a good summer movie, some nice jokes, lots of action. We smuggled in cake and ate it, which was amusing. Right now some people are playing Halo, while others are playing foosball, and a few went home. I am opting for the sleep myself, which will be quite nice. Yay sleep.

Aw man... I haven't read the graphic novel yet, but as I really liked From Hell, (both book and movie), I was hoping for goodness from V for Vendetta when it comes out. This may be an ill-placed hope, as Alan Moore has apparently publicly disassociated himself from the movie project. More can be read here.

Now off to see Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which will probably not be great but at least entertaining.

My best idea this week (which, had it failed, would have definitely been my worst idea this week by far): making pasta in my electric skillet. I am pleased, and it is tasty. Mmm.

If all goes according to plan: Mr. and Mrs. Smith tonight, X-Men and fun in ML on Saturday, and brunch on Sunday. Weekends are so much better than weekdays.

Taiko last night - my arms hurt a lot, since I hadn't been for awhile. Luckily, they feel much better now. I was floundering a bit, since we were doing rhythms I hadn't seen before... But I got the hang of some of them, and will get the others over time.

The humidity is awful. Blech.