So after J looked at them, he's sure they're some type of aphid or other. I took some castile soap (Dr. Bronner's to be specific; we buy a gallon jug and refill our bathroom soap bottles with it, even if Dr. Bronner was a little crazy and put wacky preachy things all over the label in tiny print) and added it to a spray bottle with a bunch of water. Yesterday morning I sprayed the shit out of everything and the dirt; this afternoon I took it a little farther...

I doused the everloving crap out of the plants, dabbing up water off the dirt so it doesn't get too soaked. Then, I took my tweezers and went to town. I found right away that I'd never win a game of Operation. To help, I put the big ol' pot on the floor and sat in front of it, so I could shake less when trying to grab these guys for mushing. Not easy. Fortunately, the little buggers don't move very fast at all, so I could miss four or five times and still nick one. Also, when soaped if their position was reachable but awkward for grabbing, I could just slide 'em over where I wanted 'em.

I didn't even bother counting how many little shits I grabbed and squished, either with the tweezers themselves, against the edge of the pot, or into a paper towel. There were a lot. Only one with wings, and he might've just been a lone gnat who got caught up in the fuss and bubbles. I must say, that it was nifty getting them right spang in the middle with my tweezers. They made a very quiet, but very satisfying crunch when that happened.

I must've killed a hundred of the fuckers, all told. I know I left a few dozen at least, ones that were impossible to get to without tearing up a plant, or too small to get hold of easily. I spent at least an hour picking at them, hitting bits of plant with soapy water that either dried or I'd missed. I just kept turning the pot a little at a time for new sight and tweezing angles.

So far no spreading, I guess with no winged ones yet that's helped. I sprayed my other snapdragons again a little anyway though, and my peace lily for good measure. Neither of those were in danger of oversoaking their soil; the other pot of snapdragons is full of plants and dense, and of course with the tall, big leaves of the lily not much mist gets down to the pot. Hopefully it'll only take a week or so of this to eradicate the little beasties.

One interesting and, I think, highly amusing surprise. One sucky one.

First, the interesting: I went to Ann's Bra Shop to get properly fitted for a strapless bra. Yes, I went in search of that mystical beast, the strapless bra that won't leave gouges in my flesh for a week, doesn't make me look like I have boobs on my boobs, and actually fits. Want to know my size?

Wait for it...

34D.

Yep, that's what I said. 34D. ??? Never, ever have I worn a D. They're not huge at all! Talk about a raised eyebrow moment. Damn thing fits as well as a strapless can be expected to fit (i.e. not the same as a regular strapped bra), and at $30 wasn't that bad a price (came with insertable pads which I won't be wearing, as well as straps to attach). I've still been wearing the 38Cs I bought 'cause they were good bras, and I knew I wouldn't get to wear them once I lost weight so I've been wearing the shit out of 'em. But, for a while they've been a little loose around even on the tightest hook, and I'm no longer filling the tops of the cups. So I figured I'd be about a 36C or so, especially since many of my 34Cs, in spite of the fact I wore them anyway, really actually don't fit right in the cups. Never, ever would I have figured on a D. Especially 'cause I could've sworn I measured a week or two ago and done the math and come up with a 3" difference, which is supposed to equal a C.

I measured again last night, and uh... yeah 33" underneath, 38" around the fullest part. Uhhh... O.O

So... that does give me hope though. I don't have craptons of excess fat around the circumfrence right under my boobs, so that shouldn't change much compared to the rest of me. Which means I should be able to properly fit the vast majority of bras I own once I get all the fat off that does not belong. Yay?

---

And now for the shitty surprise. I got to start my day off on the wrong foot, about literally, before ever getting out of bed. Woke up at 5:30am with a goddamn calf cramp. HELLO I AM YOUR CALF TIGHTENING VICIOUSLY AND WAKING YOU UP. Gawd that sucked. Even woke J up, and he was nice enough not to grumble at me as I whimpered what was wrong. I would like to note that having the calf on your clutch foot cramp an hour and a half before you have to use it sucks, though it was mitigated a little by a hot shower and stretching it some in said shower.

So, I can float on my back easily, and I can half-ass a weird side-stroke paddle motion to move around and stay afloat. I can't swim as in full arm-over-arm, and I can't tread water. I had swimming lessons as a little kid a loooong time ago, but I barely even remember them, and I don't know what they did and didn't teach.

There's a single adult swim lesson in Florissant (city I live in within St. Louis County) for $20 for residents (more for others), but it's only one session that falls completely covering the time when J and I like to go somewhere outta town to celebrate our anniversary. So... that's kinda out. However, the Y close to us offers lots of adult swim classes, one of which is every Saturday at 1:30pm for 6 weeks during their second summer session, which has those classes going from July 8 - August 26. Of course, since I'm not a member and don't really wish to be, it's $50.

I'll have to think on this, and then hope the Saturday session doesn't fill up before I can sign up. They also have Monday and Wednesday sessions (either/or) at 8:15pm. Of course, that's the same night as my toning class, which I'm not giving up yet, but that ends at 7:30 so I'd have plenty of time to go from one place to the other, shower enough to get rid of the sweat, get changed, etc. So I could make either session. However, whichever night I'd pick would mean that whole evening is pretty much a wash in terms of doing much of anything else. The only other session is a Tuesday & Thursday class for five weeks, but it's in the mid-morning so obviously I can't go to that.

... got a bug problem I need to fix. Apparently the snapdragons I brought home a month or so ago had bugs planted on 'em or something. I dunno where they came from or what they are. They aren't on my other house plants so far, and I intend to keep it that way. They're these teeny whitish bugs that almost don't look like bugs at first. As they get bigger they darken a bit, to like a slightly brownish cream color. When I saw them over the weekend they were all little white things and I wasn't 100% sure they were bugs. None of 'em moved, but I was pretty sure anyway because there isn't anything else I could think of they could be. This morning I saw the bigger ones, and I saw a few moving.

Anyway, I think they may be a small fly or gnat, 'cause I did find two of those. One was flying around, the other was sitting on the plant. The sitting one I grabbed by the wings and mushed; I think I got the flying one but he was difficult. Not sure if they're related to the white bugs (larvae?), but I'd put a little money on it. Not houseflies; those are bigger, shaped differently, and spawn in shit, not on plants.

I want them dead. I want to know what I can spray my snapdragons with so the bugs all die but the plants don't get sick. I did manage to kill several by sliding them off the leaves and mushing them between my fingers, but that's not an option to get rid of all of 'em unless I want to sit for an hour with tweezers going after the ones at the stems, and even then I'd probably miss some. Bonus points if I can spray the plants, and any that mists in the air and falls on the carpet won't make my cats sick; if that isn't possible I can take the plants outside to spray 'em, then bring them back in. (The few dead flower heads they've produced so far have all fallen into the pot, since they're still little plantlings and don't overhang the edges of the pot, and the cats aren't interested in trying to stand all the way up and maybe get a chance to chew on one.)

I looked, and have yet to see any on my other pot of snapdragons, though I can't be totally sure since they're absolutely huge and overhanging the pot on the window side, and shittons of leaves. But I didn't see any on anything I could definitely see well enough. I really don't want the bugs spreading over there. I don't want a house infestation, nor do I want my plants to get eaten or something, once these bugs turn into whatever they're going to turn into. So I'd much rather kill them while they're still little white or cream colored bugs, in case they do grow wings and become little gnats or flies and go lay more eggs more plants.

Edit: It sounds like it could be whiteflies. Gah, they make it sound like they're gonna kill my snapdragons and I won't be able to get rid of 'em and stuff. Can anyone make any recommendations? Sounds like rubbing alcohol, water, and liquid soap combined and sprayed might work to kill 'em?

Edit 2: With more research, it looks like it might be more likely for them to be some type of aphid. Will the same thing get rid of both?

I think eating helped. My fog is gone, I'm inspired, and am playing with Java 5 generics For Great Justice. Or something. Anyway, I'm having a grand ol' time with it. I didn't even realize we're running way late for lunch today. Oops.

I couldn't sleep for crap Sunday night anyway, which means (oddly enough) that come morning I knew I'd be more wide awake than usual, and I had some stuff I wanted to get done before the morning meeting so I ended up getting up early enough that I was at my desk at 6:20 yesterday. Got in over 2 hours' OT, between that, staying until almost a quarter to 5, then working for an hour and a half last night before bed.

Please to be permitting me a quickish WoW rant:

With an escort quest, only one person or party can do it at a time. When you escort an NPC out of somewhere, he leaves, which means no one else can do it until the quest ends (in failure or success; failure if the NPC dies or all the people escorting him die). So J's helping me quest faster (done all this shit before, know my class well enough after already having had a 60 hunter not to care whether I do the lowbie shit the "right" way, yadda yadda), and we're waiting for an escort dude to pop. We'd just walked into his cave headed for him when we saw him being escorted. So we waited, keeping the area clear to make escorting him easier when the time came. And waited. And waited. Keeshan walks rather slowly, and it's a rather long walk. Two or three minutes before he respawns, some other people show up to wait. We're there first so it's our turn next, right? Wrong. Shitholes talk to him before I can, and take him out. OMG FUMING! It's a ten minute goddamn wait, and I'd already waited it once. And these assholes think it's quite nifty to make someone else wait again (it's quite obvious we were waiting; why else would we be standing around in this asshole's respawn area) because they didn't feel like waiting their turn. Ugh. Same sort of people who, as children, push other children out of line for the slide so they can go again faster. Ended up sending the one whose character name I remembered a note via game mail on how rude they were, 'cause that's it for recourse. J tried to go up to the Burning Steppes to train a 50-something fire drake on 'em, but he lost the drake right before he got to 'em.

So right after that I had to fire up the laptop if I wanted to get any work done and still go to sleep before a stupid-late hour, so I got to do that in a bad mood yay. Fired up some Tori and blared it straight to my ear drums to make me feel better. Ended up staying up later than I wanted anyway because of a software push to my laptop a ways back that forced me to set up my wireless connection all over again (twice! because it didn't work the first time).

Sooooo tired now. OMG. I figured what the hell and left my alarm set early to see what would happen. Heh. Fell back asleep again until 5:45, no biggie, could sleep a few more minutes. Half an hour later... yeah, oops. Still was only 10 minutes late, even getting in a shower.

I feel so braindead worthless right now. Coffee has made me all jitteryish but not cleared the fog out at all. Need to eat my granola bar for breakfast, that'll take some of the jitters away. This week is gonna suck kinda. Lots of shit to do this week, not enough time in the work week to get it done without OT. No idea how much OT either (and yes, I took the time to write this out; my brain is so not intelligent enough right now to write code >.<). I have three things I want to finish this week, need to finish this week.

Any of you guys who haven't seen this FO thread yet (for instance, those of you who aren't members), you absolutely must. If I'd been at home reading all those stories I would've been laughing out loud so hard. It's almost unbelievable such a person could even exist who really does all that.

A good point was made though... the dude sounds like he might've had some Asperger's going on, what with the repeating words over and over when severely flustered. Still, that really isn't the funniest of it, and I don't feel guilty laughing at this guy at all.

I spent 40 minutes on the R-bike yesterday, plus did 32 regular crunches and 36 oblique crunches (a single one counting as both directions). Also, Monday I totally couldn't remember how much weight I was doing on each of my three sets; I finally remembered 4 for shoulders and 7 for biceps, but I forgot what I was doing with triceps. I picked up a 4lb and 2lb weight together to do them... realized after I'd started I meant to be doing 5 lbs not 6. But, I got through the whole set with each arm. So, I guess I'm up to 6lbs on triceps since I was able to repeat that Wednesday.

I'm now able to get through the majority of our bicycles we do at the end of our ab work, including the oblique rotations we mix in during half (sometimes all at the last half, sometimes alternating between rotating vs. not throughout the whole set). It only took, what, 4 sessions? 5? before I could start doing that.

I didn't lose any weight between last week and this. I didn't bother with posting a weigh-in since it wasn't until Wednesday morning I remembered to weigh myself in the morning. Ah well, next week.

My current waist size and hip size in inches give me a four size disparity between the two on size charts. However, I find it interesting most put me at a 14 size waist with one at 16, yet I only own one size 14 skirt and no 16s, and the 14 is already loose. I'm also fitting into my size 10 high waisted Levis that I've had for at least 4 years by now. So... department stores around me evidently sell sizes differently than anything in VS, LL Bean, Land's End, or any other place I could come up with online that had a size chart. So either their size charts are wrong for the clothing they sell, or they're accurate but they all sell clothing with bigger sizes for the same measurement as the department stores do. Regardless, it makes pants shopping difficult. If there's enough room in the waist, typically the seat has more room than I'll ever conceivably need, which doesn't make for an attractive fit on the butt.

Either way, I'm still elated that my high waisted 10s fit me fine, and are even slightly loose if I contract my newly-not-sucky ab muscles all the way.

Moustache handlebars, that is.

Wow. I can't begin to imagine how one would go about getting to the point that most of those men did.

Our scale can approximate body fat % by knowing density of muscle, bone, fat, and weight, and sending an electrical signal up and back down again to get how tall you are and how fast the return of the signal happened. All this when you're naked and dry for as accurate as it's gonna get, since clothing and lots of water on the body can make a difference. When we first got it, the first time I tested it out it placed me at 37% assuming J's remembering the figure accurately (I assume so; I can't remember 'cause it's been at least a year by now, but I do remember exclaiming about it). On a whim I decided to get on it last night after I'd showered and my hair had a chance to get down to just dampish, and it placed me at 31%. So it figures I've lost about 6% body fat. Yay me? Only, what, 15-20% or so to go to be at a reasonable percentage without being too low. Most of that being between my belly button and the widest point of my hips.

... the crux, the real simple meat, of the rant is:

You do not. Make promises. For other people. You don't fucking promise that someone else will do something. Ever. You don't make promises others have to keep without their prior knowledge.

Basically someone was told yesterday that I'd call them today. I was not even informed of this until this afternoon, and the person I was apparently supposed to call isn't answering.

So, from this article about sex offenders living closer to schools than the laws allow (and apparently nothing being done about it) I found a link to the Family Watchdog site where you can search an address, and click on schools in the area (for a specific school, it's easiest just to put in the school's address) and find out what sex offenders are living nearby, categorized by type. They're all shown on the map in various colored squares, with red being for child related offenses.

There are two child molesters and one "indecency" guy living within a mile, probably half mile, of our house. (I marked our house on the map myself, that wasn't on the original I cropped from.) One, number three, is especially close. The first one I'm not really concerned about; indecency could be a wide range of things given that he wasn't charged with molestation, so I don't know the details.

There was only one child molester within a mile of my old grade school, which is what I initially looked up, but kinda scary is the child molester living about one block from the Robinwood Elementary school. Kinda freaky. I'm not saying we should be hunting any of these guys down and going vigilante, just that with the relatively high rate of recidivism in sex offenders, particularly those who hurt children, it's a good reminder for schools to keep a close eye on kids coming and going and during recess. Even if there aren't any living nearby doesn't mean there aren't others who can wander through or who just haven't been caught yet. No witch hunts are necessary, just precautions. Though I would hope that some solutions of all recess being indoors mentioned in the article were only temporary measures due to a lack of being able to reasonably secure/watch the outdoor playground areas due to easily obscured areas or a lack of staff or whathaveyou. Otherwise it's a bit overboard.

It's rabbit season! So cute! There's a baby bunny that looks only just big enough to be out of the nest, that's been hanging out since mid last week in the grass strip between one of the buildings and the sidewalk that goes between that building and the other. It just sits there as we all walk by, only three or four feet from us. So adorable. (So stupid.) Then, at the workout class word spread after it was over that there was a brand new bunny nest right by the back windows. There was this wee hole in the ground with a momma bunny sitting in front of it, and wee little bunny faces all wriggling and bobbing inside the wee hole. One was even stretched forward nursing while momma had a hind leg hiked up to wash. Squeee!

I knew I had a handful of change in my pocket yesterday. I counted it, and I had $6.13. O.O My salad in the cafeteria was heavier than I would've figured, so after that and an iced tea I now have $2.17. Much lighter.

I just reduced the size of my inbox at work from 20.7MB to 3.7MB. All those 0.5-2MB attachments I hadn't cleaned out, plus several other old Powerpoint meeting agendas from old meetings. Most of it got deleted; a few things got saved off into personal folders.

Our front lawn is in desperate need of mowing but it's rained from Sunday through yesterday so we haven't been able to. It's sunny this morning, but there's still a chance it could rain.

I still haven't found my new ATM card. I know, with 99% certainty, what room it's in. I know it's a different color than my current one, possibly some sort of various-colored seafoam green or suchlike. I just have to go through everything more closely. In the meantime, lunch will have to be credit card paid today, then I'm going to have to go straight to the bank this afternoon and fill out a withdrawal slip for some cash for both of us until I can find it.

You know, the Much Ado About Nothing regarding their supposed Phantom gaming console that was going to be the best ever but it's a Big Secret™?

Yah well... looks like Tim Roberts went a little too far this time in his screwing over of venture capitalists. If you ever read the HardOCP articles, this guy basically makes a living off starting a company to get shittons of capital, then folding. Why different ones kept giving him money time after time, beats me. They're such a weary lot, and relatively few of them, you'd figure they'd pass around names of guys who'd been a bad deal and lost all their money.

Anyway, as part of the punishment handed down by the SEC is that he never be allowed to be a CEO of another company ever again. Which means, no more making a startup in order to swindle VCs out of money, at least not without help from someone else who can hide the fact that Roberts even knows him and who's willing to be complicit in such a scheme.

If you haven't the foggiest idea what I'm talking about, hit Google with the name of the "company" and it should give you all the goods. Maybe add HardOCP into the search to get their articles on it.

Such a foul mood. It's been a morning where nearly nothing goes right, and it's almost a surprise I made it to work instead of having some crazy freak accident with a semi and a flock of geese on the way and having to make a trip to the ER.

Snip much ranting and bitching and making mountains out of molehills:

First there was the spider in the goddamn computer room. Just getting up the courage to lean all the way over my desk to smush it, given it's a jumper (of course, they always are) and I'm reaching across 3 feet of desk and a monitor, Zephyr comes in all MEOW MEOW FEEEEEED MEEEEEE MEOW MEOW. In spite of the fact that the amount of food we give them should've lasted until this afternoon, he just had to be a total glutton and finish it all by morning instead. I have a feeling it's only Pele who's getting less food while Piggy McTubbo still manages to gorge himself. So I figure I'll come right back to the spider, shoe in hand, as soon as I've taken care of their dishes (water was empty too, but gordo-gut doesn't care about that). Guess what's fucking gone when I get back? Yep, no spider. No fucking clue where it went either. I looked. I wasn't about to start crawling under my computer desk to look at the bit of wall I couldn't see. No desire to have a spider on my fucking head crawling around and looking for a nice place to bite. Even turned on the light so I could see all the easily visible wall surfaces better. No dice. Not even behind where I could see by standing close to the desk.

So at that point I'm running at least 5 minutes late.

I get dressed, get ready, and am grabbing my purse when I realize: need to hit the ATM. No money, had to borrow (CC was at home after having gotten gas and leaving it in my other pants). Then it dawns on me that I also found out my fucking ATM card has fucking expired. So what do I do? Go look all over all the shit on my fucking computer desk looking for the new one I'm fairly sure they sent me. Guess what I don't fucking find? I wasted at least another five minutes doing that! For nothing! No card. No money. No way to just ask J to go get it, because he didn't even deign to activate his first one, because "oh well you have one why do I ever need one?" Guh! So here it is, only minutes from when I should be in the goddamn parking lot at work, and I have no money on me and have wasted 10 minutes or more for absolutely fucking nothing. At least I have my fucking credit card back in my fucking wallet, and most of the fast food places we go to take plastic now. The dude I work with from whom I borrowed five bucks I'll see again on Thursday, so I can pay him back then. By then I should be able to find the ATM card I'm pretty sure I'm not imagining, even if I have to tear the computer room apart from end to end to find it tonight.

Then of course there's the usual traffic. Shitholes going OMG I'M GOING THE SPEED LIMIT, MUST BRAAAAAAKE!!!!11 and then slowing down to 35 on fucking Lindbergh, nevermind there's no inclement weather that necessitates going under the fucking speed limit. Apparently 40mph is a goddamn scary fucking speed to drive at in a small sedan or regular minivan. It's not just the going under the speed limit that gets me. It's the braking to slow down 3 fucking miles an hour because golly gosh they can't just let up on the gas a little to do it, they must do it right fucking now because doing the speed limit for five fucking seconds might cause them to spontaneously combust or some shit.

When making a lane change, these things are required, not optional:

1. Look in your mirrors and out your windows for the side you're changing to. Assuming the lane is clear and you won't be cutting someone off is bad, mmmkay?
2. Use your goddamn turn signal!!! At least then if you've decided to cut that other driver off anyway, they'll actually have fair warning. Maybe, just maybe, they might even decide to give you room to come over since you were nice enough to let them know of your intentions. Oh, and you one-blippers, blinking once while you're straddling the line between two lanes means you're doing it wrong. Signal should go on before you start changing lanes, and then leave it the fuck on until you're pretty much done, but do turn it off after you're done; you don't wanna be That Guy who drives with a signal on for 3 miles.

The only exception I can think of, is if you're having to change lanes very fucking suddenly to avoid an accident. Obviously taking the time to look first, signal, etc. might actually cost you in that case. That's what makes it important to pay enough attention to know you have another lane to ditch to by knowing at all times the location of the traffic around you.

Brought to you by the idiot I changed lanes to go around, who decided he wanted to change lanes into the same one. I signalled before I went, accelerated... and guess who planted his rear bumper a foot from my front one with a quick signalless drift? Yeah. Not cool at all. Probably didn't even understand why I honked at his dumbass.

Didn't get this into the weigh-in post, just now having found my tape measure and measuring m'self.

Current waist measurement: 33.25" 32.5" ^*
Current hip measurement: 37.5"

So, three quarters of an inch off my waist and a half inch off my hips since March 13. I knew they were a bit smaller, just didn't know by how much. Cool.

^* Edited because I apparently don't know how to measure. I measured again May 18 and got 32.5". No way I lost 3/4 of an inch in a week, so... yeah. Inspired by pulling on high waisted size 10 jeans and thinking something wasn't right.

We got email notice that two of our four gates to our complex were gonna be closed until tomorrow morning. Come to find out, this is probably why. The two gates that are closed are to either side of the corner that's happening at.

The lot that's pictured in the story was a gas station a long, long time ago (no idea how long it's been closed, but it's been longer than the near 6 years I've been working here). It's right up next to what used to be a pretty good Chinese restaurant, which is next to one of our closed gates, and which the statue place also bought.

Rumor has it that it's a drug raid, from the rumor mill around here. They're definitely looking for something smuggled if they're breaking open statues.

I can pretty safely say this is the closest I've ever been to an FBI raid.

I weighed myself yesterday then didn't get around to posting it. Weight as of May 9 @ 6:45am: 141.6 pounds.

Slow but steady wins the race, I guess.

Some dude IM'd me on ICQ in German. I tell him I only speak English. After a bit, I figure out he doesn't speak English at all. Can't read it, doesn't know it. I whip out Babelfish and have it translate "I don't speak German" into German and paste it to him. He says more stuff in German, that Babelfish more or less tells me he'd already figured that out. Also something that probably meant "I have to go." Uh... yeah. So I have it translate "Us talking will not work", or whatever vague equivalent, and paste that. I get nothing else from him, so I figure he got some brains and gave up to find someone to talk to who speaks German. This was all before lunch.

He wrote me back just now to say Hi again. ??? Definitely same guy. I write him back, not bothering to translate, "I still don't speak German." He writes something, then "I not english sprechen". Yeah, we've been over this, you don't speak English. I tell him goodbye and "I not speak German." and close the window. I got an "ok" after that, and so far nothing else.

WTF? Why on earth would he think that somehow I learned semi-fluent German in a couple hours? He assume I was yanking his chain or some shit, or that I'd actually care enough about someone I've never met to keep Babelfish open to try and have a conversation? I'm not angry, just kinda annoyed and more than a little confused.

Spoke too soon yesterday, it would seem. Tuesday I developed a slightly "lumpy" throat that pretty much stuck around, made me feel kinda tired (I think; I hadn't gotten enough sleep the night before either). Yesterday wasn't too terrible, just had to blow my nose some and was kinda draggy but meh, whatever. Until I got home. Then I started in with the uncontrollable sneezing and itchy sinuses. I didn't go to class even, and by the time we were done with dinner there was plenty of time to play WoW and have J even pull me through quests faster, but I could. not. stop. sneezing, so I would've had to just put him on auto-follow and what fun is that?

I ended taking some Benadryl to knock me out and going to bed around 8:15, and reading till about a quarter to 9. It kinda worked, I was still in and out and vaguely remember having a lot of weird dreams. I did manager to get by without as much sneezing and without blowing my nose a bunch.

I'm totally wiped today. Symptomwise I'm feeling better, but I'm completely in a fog. Of course, last Thursday I took a sick day because I was so exhausted I was worried I would get sick, so I didn't want to take another yesterday or today. I popped some DayQuil this morning and took more with me for later, and it seems like it might be helping a little. I'm still blowing my nose, but not half as much as yesterday.

I just have to keep telling myself that it could've been worse, and that the week's almost over.

Anyone know what font these guys are using in their main banner? I'm trying to make an 80x15 mini-banner to link to them (all such links on my site are that size, and they don't have any that small) and I'm all set except the damn font. I don't even know that I have anything close. I'm obviously going for flat not rounded like their banner, at the size I'm using, but I can't even find the right font to use.

Current weight as of May 2 @ 6:35am: 142.2 pounds.

I spent 25 minutes on the R-bike last night after class. Heh, thought maybe I was doing too much off the bat, with an already-elevated heart rate from class, but then I realized the heart rate monitor was rising of its own volition. After that I just rode with my hands in my lap (the upper handlebars are too far away to be comfortable) and it ended up rising to 187bpm and mostly staying there. I let the person monitoring the room know about it, and she said it's amazing how often they have to replace that part on all their cardio machines.

Especially, what the fuck happened to "press or say" and you actually get to keep pushing buttons? I don't like saying "yes" or "no" or whateverthefuck into a voice system. For starters, if you don't practically shout the damn things are all "I'm sorry, I couldn't understand you". Then, the one I'm dealing with if it "doesn't understand you" for 3 times, it doesn't give you push-the-button options, it just pretends like you didn't confirm whatever it is they're asking you to confirm. How fucking stupid is that? I ended up having to call back and start the fuck over, then shout at the goddamn thing (at work, by the way, where I don't really want to be disturbing others having to yell at the goddamn phone) just to get past the SSN confirmation. They let you enter the damn thing (ooh, or you could say it, yay) but then they ask for verbal confirmation with no option to press 1 for yes, 2 for no, or whatever.

Guh. Call me crazy, but as long as I'm in an automated system I don't want to be talking to it. It doesn't make it feel any less automated, it's just annoying.

Friday night was nice. In WoW I played my hunter 2.0 a bit, and was on when they killed Nefarion. Alligare rocked the drops, scoring 3 (and J joked that had I been 60 I would've totally spent points on the 4th drop, a belt perfect for a hunter IIRC ). After that J formed up with some other folks to join an impromptu AQ20 group, where they rocked ass apparently (I went to bed).

Saturday we slept in and just lazed in the house playing more WoW. The folks from Friday night suggested going back to AQ20 to down another boss (can't remember which one) and J snooped in the instance to see what trash mobs had respawned. None had until right before the boss they were aiming for. However, almost no one from the night before was yet on so it looked like they weren't going to form up at all. They did end up going, but way after they thought they would. Don't remember whether they dropped that boss or not, heh.

J went to a bachelor party that was to start at 5, so I had the night to myself. I played WoW till a little after 10, getting to level 25 and even soloing a green elite quest, yay. At that point I decided to treat myself to a nice soak in the tub. Had 3 candles going, hooked up my iRiver to some old computer speakers, it was nice. Then I went to bed, read some (finished I, Robot; damn was that a fast read) then realized I wasn't going to be sleeping any time soon. So I snagged my laptop and lounged in bed reading the forums and playing websudoku until J called at, I dunno, some time after 2am. He was surprised I answered so quickly, and not in a groggy voice. We talked the whole while he drove home, hanging up after he came in the front door. We had some frisky fun, and ended up staying up till about 4:30. Ooops.

Sunday, once we got moving we grabbed some lunch then hit the grocery store, which we'd been in need of doing for probably three weeks. Big grocery bill, but then we're stocked up for a while, and we were woefully low on things or out of things, so it's all good. I also bought a 6-pack of snapdragons 'cause I needed one to fill a hole in the pot I already had of them which had one die early. That led to me dumping out another pot to plant the other five in. Then, I decided to clean up the area where I put the ajuga in the backyard. It had attempted to grow over onto the top step off the porch (on the level with the porch, but wood and not concrete) and mostly died. I didn't want it growing there anyway, so the one or two offshoots that actually were still living I moved to the lower of the two tiers, and the rest along with the leaf detritus it'd tried to grow in got dumped in the mulch pile. I also cleaned the second step and the bottom step (which is set into the ground) of the massive amount of leaves and other organic crap that'd gathered there. Heh, I used the biggest reasonably usable container outside to move the stuff to the mulch pile: an empty hanging planter.

By that point it was 5:15, and well past the time I should've cleaned myself up so we could go to my parents' house for J's birthday dinner. D'oh! Anyway, dinner was good. J asked for fried chicken, mashed potatoes & white gravy, and greenbean casserole. Mom was cool with it, and even cooler 'cause she made some separate baked chicken for my grandfather who really has to watch his grease intake, along with some wine sauce for it if he wanted it (vermouth, apricot brandy, and... something else I can't remember). J got not one but two black belts, one slightly dressier, which he needed. He also got a couple neato shot glasses. J ended up not feeling well as the night wore on, not sure why (he started feeling kinda vaguely tired and ick, with a sore throat and drainage, ever since we went grocery shopping). So we went home around 9 and went to bed around 11. I read until midnight then turned out the light. *yawn*

All in all, it was a pretty good weekend. I can't believe it's May already. I'm happy that except for a few days' span, summer hasn't been in a huge rush to take over yet. Got some more serious thoughts bouncing around in my head, none directly to do with me, but I want to figure out how to frame them and write it all out. Dunno how long that'll take me.