(no subject)
This past month has been very interesting, both (and mostly) at work and privately. I guess I'll start with work first. We've hired some new people to start animating, and one of them is a bit of an odd ball (let's call him Ted). Doesn't help that he reminds me of a boyfriend from high school. Though Ted's across the room and can easily close his door, he keeps it open so that Yuko (the production coordinator) and I can here everything that he does, including randomly break into song for about thirty seconds and hear his discussions with his family. He also has another person (another animator and new hire) sitting next to him, yet Ted still seems to keep up his antics. I think my favorite is when his mom calls him, or he calls her. He usually checks in once a day, and the greeting is almost an announcer-like, "hello mother." Ted never calls his mom Mom, always mother, which makes listening into the conversations all that more entertaining. Usually he check in on her health, and the conversations usually are short and end abruptly. He is alo apologising constantly, and that partly also has to do with him seemingly not being able to take critisism well (from what I hear from Yuko). An example with be if I go into the kitchen (which is very small, maybe room for three people at the most) he will apologize profussly for, "being in my way." He does this with everyone else too. Also, according to Yuko, when the animation supervisor come to check his work and sees something that could be improved or fixed, he will usually become very apologetic. The last week, though, he seemed to become adjetated when he was given criticism. I think maybe the more depressing of the conversations I've heard from Ted was Friday morning when he was talking to the other animator (let's call him Jon). Ted was talking to Jon about seeing movies, which let to a comment from Ted that Jon should invite him to Jon's house to watch movies with him. I almost laughed, the comment was almost something out of a comedy where the older sleazy guy is trying to seduce to young naive girl. There was a short pause, follwed by Ted saying something along the lines of, "aww c'mon we should hang out, I have no freinds!" That last staement just made the preceeding conversation depressing. But on the flip side, his animation work is very good. There are times when I believe that these things happen as a way of balancing things out.
Also, I got to go to a line reading session last week with my boss as well, my first time ever. It was interesting to see how the person in the sound booth would direct the person to say the lines they way tey wanted. I was only allowed to be an observer, since my boss had toold me that Disney were the ones now in charge of how they thought the lines should be read. It was kind of hard at first, I wanted to correct them on a couple of things about the premiss of the story, but I did very well about keeping my mouth shut. That and my boss has a cool Jepp, the driver's side is on the right hand side from her days working for the postal service. Another funny thing that happened with my boss was that on the way back, my boss had a question for me, and said that she asked me specifically because I'm from San Francisco. She and her fiance (who she still calls her girlfriend, oops!) are getting married soon, and my boss wants to invite her best friend of 27 years (who happens to live in San Franciso) and her girlfrind to the wedding. Where this gets complicated is that her friend and her partner opened up their what is now their 27 year relationship with another lesbian couple. My bosses question was if she could just invite her firend and her girlfriend or if she'd have to invite all four of them. I gave my opinion, which was that she should just invite her friend and the girlfriend, and then for some reason I recommended that she should ask Dan Savage of Savage Love. Turns out my boss is a fan of Dan, but didn't have the information for his pod-cast, which I recommended she call into for a quicker response. I got her the info, so I'm wondering if she actually called in!
Personally, things have been a little up and down. I don't mean to be a whinny bitch but it seems a lot of shit hits the fan around my birthday. Labor Day weekend was when it started, and I was feeling really down. From the last time things got pear-shaped, I realized that it's a good idea to hang out with good friends even when I'd like to be like Osama and find a good hiding spot from the world. I called Dhino and we hung out. The funniest thing that night was that we were driving through a not so good part of town, and my car ended up stopping next to a white middle aged woman (who looked a little Tammy Fay Baker-ish) in an Oldmobile blasting what sounded like Beyonce. My car windows were rolled down a little and Dhino and I were in a conversation. Again, just like a scene in a movie, Dhino gave a quick glance to his right, turned to me with a slightly disgusted look on his face, and quietly rolled up his window. Probably due to how crappy I was feeling, I bust out laughing and had to put my hand over my mouth to quiet myself and to stop myself from laughing. About a week after that, my car's engine light popped on for some reason. Because I had had some unforseen expenses at the time and with work so far away (and majorly screwwing up at work, which I thought would lead to my firing, so me trying to look good), I avoided taking it to my mechanic for about a week. Friday night, on the 14th, when I got off the freeway exit to go to Bikram my engine stalled. Because Honda's are so quiet and I had my Zen blasting I didn't realise that the engine had stalled until I tried to turn. I started the car again and got to practice. When I tried to go home (which is a little less then two miles away from the studio) the car stalled twice. I was supposed to take it to a body shop the following Monday to re-paint a badly patched area so I could turn in the car a little earlier than the lease end date (October 23rd) but with the engine acting up I didn't trust the car. The worst was that I nereded to do errands that couldn't wait, so I resolved to call the local Hertz rental car office (since a Chevy Cobalt that I got stuck renting for four days from Enterprise cost about $0.99 a day, and that was for economy) becuase they offer better cars at cheaper prices. The only trouble with this was that it was a Saturday, so even thoughg they offer pick-up services there was only one guy in the office. I also forgot to mention that the 15th was also the eighth anniversary of a good friend's death, and with everything else getting piled on I was a wreck. I had called my good freind Michael the nioght before to see if he had my mechanic's direct number since the shop is usually closed on weekends (Michael is friend's with our mechanic's ex-girlfriend, and they are still friends) and vcalled him again to see if he could also give me a ride to Hertz so I could pick up a car. Thanks goodness for good friends, he picked my sorry-ass up (I was so defeated I started crying on the phone when asking him to pick me up, embarrassing). On the way there he called the ex-girlfrind and left a message. While at the rental place he tried to cheer me up with a story of a friend of his whose car got totalled by a drunk in a Hummer who hit the curb next to the driveway, flipped over, and smashed the friend's Pontiac before coming to rest in the front lawn. I was relieved to have transportation but still was stressed over how to get my car to my mechanic. Later in the day I walked over to the Coffee Bean that had opened up about a block and a half away from me to give myself a little pick me up. On the way there who should call but my mechanic, who saved me the third degree by hearing about how shitty my month was so far and the fact that it was both the anniversay of my friend's death and my birthday a week from then. He arranged to have my car towed, since I didn't trust it making the ten mile trip to his shop. One crisis averted, but I was still feeling shitty. Dhino came over later in the day and we ended up again at Coffee Bean, with him helping me to cheer me up a little. Turned out that the engine's air temperature intake sensor and fuel sensing unit had pooped out, and becuase my car is less than 3 years old and under 36,000 miles, I didn't have to pay the $401.91 in repairs because or warrenty (thank god!!!). The trouble was that because of how far away work and the repair places were (and the lack of available rides) I just got the car back yesterday instead of maybe a week ago. Now the only thing to fix is the paint patch, which hopefully can be done before the 23rd, or I'm screwed. I'm also trying to have a local dealership down here take the car so I don't have to ship it to Marin Honda. As you can tell, still a little stressed about the car, but it'll all be over soon.
Then there's getting a new car. Since my family and I have owned Hondas/Acuras since '88 and this is really the first time I've had a major problem like that, I'm of course giving them another shot. This was also the first Honda I owned or even drove that was built in the US, and though my mechanic says it shouldn't matter, I'll most likely try and buy one that was made in Japan with all the stuff I want. Now, this will probably should like my spoiled Marinite self coming out, but I'm a big fan of toys and (especailly with the Hertz reantl with XM radio and my mom's h all te extras excuding stereo) have decided that I would like to get the new '08 Civic with the navigation system. I know that's silly, but when driving in my mom's car the navigation system saved my butt a couple of times, and with the driving down here and nearly getting into a few accidents bacasue of bad directions from direction sites and friends I found the system to be far easier to work with. Also(especially since the rental car I have right now has XM) it comes with XM equiptment standard as well as a three month free trail, and has card readers to play music and such. I have checked my credit, and though I don't have much of a history (my choosing, which looks like a good choice so far) my score is pretty good, so I'm hoping that I can get what I want without having to pay a lot. Again, don't mind my Marin-ness, but I'm thinking of getting a four door (mostly for errands I have to run for work and occassionally for myself) and I'm trying to decide between a regular EX (they are coming out with an EX-L, which is a regualr EX with standard leather, heaated seats and windows, which makes sense for some parts of the country but here would just be silly) or the hybrid since my drive to work is about 22 miles one way. The problem I'm having with the choice is that I believe I'm killing the engine in the car I have now (and possibly the last Honda I had) by driving a little harder than it can manage, and the regual Civics now have 140 horse power instead of mine's 129 (the hybrid has 110). On the other hand, the hybrid has climate control, and hear me out. It doesn't seem like a big deal but it seems to save energy because the computer is programmed to recognise the actual temperature you set it to instead of just making the car hotter or colder. For example, my mom always has the car set to 72 degrees, and instead of just having it be slightly warmer than normal, you can feel the car trying to cool itself down to 72 degrees if you've left it out on the sun or warm itself up if you're driving on a cool night. Yeah, I know, it's silly toys that really shouldn't affect my decision, but....TOYS!!1!!1!!1!! Oh well, it'll all come down to money...I hate money.
Also, I got to go to a line reading session last week with my boss as well, my first time ever. It was interesting to see how the person in the sound booth would direct the person to say the lines they way tey wanted. I was only allowed to be an observer, since my boss had toold me that Disney were the ones now in charge of how they thought the lines should be read. It was kind of hard at first, I wanted to correct them on a couple of things about the premiss of the story, but I did very well about keeping my mouth shut. That and my boss has a cool Jepp, the driver's side is on the right hand side from her days working for the postal service. Another funny thing that happened with my boss was that on the way back, my boss had a question for me, and said that she asked me specifically because I'm from San Francisco. She and her fiance (who she still calls her girlfriend, oops!) are getting married soon, and my boss wants to invite her best friend of 27 years (who happens to live in San Franciso) and her girlfrind to the wedding. Where this gets complicated is that her friend and her partner opened up their what is now their 27 year relationship with another lesbian couple. My bosses question was if she could just invite her firend and her girlfriend or if she'd have to invite all four of them. I gave my opinion, which was that she should just invite her friend and the girlfriend, and then for some reason I recommended that she should ask Dan Savage of Savage Love. Turns out my boss is a fan of Dan, but didn't have the information for his pod-cast, which I recommended she call into for a quicker response. I got her the info, so I'm wondering if she actually called in!
Personally, things have been a little up and down. I don't mean to be a whinny bitch but it seems a lot of shit hits the fan around my birthday. Labor Day weekend was when it started, and I was feeling really down. From the last time things got pear-shaped, I realized that it's a good idea to hang out with good friends even when I'd like to be like Osama and find a good hiding spot from the world. I called Dhino and we hung out. The funniest thing that night was that we were driving through a not so good part of town, and my car ended up stopping next to a white middle aged woman (who looked a little Tammy Fay Baker-ish) in an Oldmobile blasting what sounded like Beyonce. My car windows were rolled down a little and Dhino and I were in a conversation. Again, just like a scene in a movie, Dhino gave a quick glance to his right, turned to me with a slightly disgusted look on his face, and quietly rolled up his window. Probably due to how crappy I was feeling, I bust out laughing and had to put my hand over my mouth to quiet myself and to stop myself from laughing. About a week after that, my car's engine light popped on for some reason. Because I had had some unforseen expenses at the time and with work so far away (and majorly screwwing up at work, which I thought would lead to my firing, so me trying to look good), I avoided taking it to my mechanic for about a week. Friday night, on the 14th, when I got off the freeway exit to go to Bikram my engine stalled. Because Honda's are so quiet and I had my Zen blasting I didn't realise that the engine had stalled until I tried to turn. I started the car again and got to practice. When I tried to go home (which is a little less then two miles away from the studio) the car stalled twice. I was supposed to take it to a body shop the following Monday to re-paint a badly patched area so I could turn in the car a little earlier than the lease end date (October 23rd) but with the engine acting up I didn't trust the car. The worst was that I nereded to do errands that couldn't wait, so I resolved to call the local Hertz rental car office (since a Chevy Cobalt that I got stuck renting for four days from Enterprise cost about $0.99 a day, and that was for economy) becuase they offer better cars at cheaper prices. The only trouble with this was that it was a Saturday, so even thoughg they offer pick-up services there was only one guy in the office. I also forgot to mention that the 15th was also the eighth anniversary of a good friend's death, and with everything else getting piled on I was a wreck. I had called my good freind Michael the nioght before to see if he had my mechanic's direct number since the shop is usually closed on weekends (Michael is friend's with our mechanic's ex-girlfriend, and they are still friends) and vcalled him again to see if he could also give me a ride to Hertz so I could pick up a car. Thanks goodness for good friends, he picked my sorry-ass up (I was so defeated I started crying on the phone when asking him to pick me up, embarrassing). On the way there he called the ex-girlfrind and left a message. While at the rental place he tried to cheer me up with a story of a friend of his whose car got totalled by a drunk in a Hummer who hit the curb next to the driveway, flipped over, and smashed the friend's Pontiac before coming to rest in the front lawn. I was relieved to have transportation but still was stressed over how to get my car to my mechanic. Later in the day I walked over to the Coffee Bean that had opened up about a block and a half away from me to give myself a little pick me up. On the way there who should call but my mechanic, who saved me the third degree by hearing about how shitty my month was so far and the fact that it was both the anniversay of my friend's death and my birthday a week from then. He arranged to have my car towed, since I didn't trust it making the ten mile trip to his shop. One crisis averted, but I was still feeling shitty. Dhino came over later in the day and we ended up again at Coffee Bean, with him helping me to cheer me up a little. Turned out that the engine's air temperature intake sensor and fuel sensing unit had pooped out, and becuase my car is less than 3 years old and under 36,000 miles, I didn't have to pay the $401.91 in repairs because or warrenty (thank god!!!). The trouble was that because of how far away work and the repair places were (and the lack of available rides) I just got the car back yesterday instead of maybe a week ago. Now the only thing to fix is the paint patch, which hopefully can be done before the 23rd, or I'm screwed. I'm also trying to have a local dealership down here take the car so I don't have to ship it to Marin Honda. As you can tell, still a little stressed about the car, but it'll all be over soon.
Then there's getting a new car. Since my family and I have owned Hondas/Acuras since '88 and this is really the first time I've had a major problem like that, I'm of course giving them another shot. This was also the first Honda I owned or even drove that was built in the US, and though my mechanic says it shouldn't matter, I'll most likely try and buy one that was made in Japan with all the stuff I want. Now, this will probably should like my spoiled Marinite self coming out, but I'm a big fan of toys and (especailly with the Hertz reantl with XM radio and my mom's h all te extras excuding stereo) have decided that I would like to get the new '08 Civic with the navigation system. I know that's silly, but when driving in my mom's car the navigation system saved my butt a couple of times, and with the driving down here and nearly getting into a few accidents bacasue of bad directions from direction sites and friends I found the system to be far easier to work with. Also(especially since the rental car I have right now has XM) it comes with XM equiptment standard as well as a three month free trail, and has card readers to play music and such. I have checked my credit, and though I don't have much of a history (my choosing, which looks like a good choice so far) my score is pretty good, so I'm hoping that I can get what I want without having to pay a lot. Again, don't mind my Marin-ness, but I'm thinking of getting a four door (mostly for errands I have to run for work and occassionally for myself) and I'm trying to decide between a regular EX (they are coming out with an EX-L, which is a regualr EX with standard leather, heaated seats and windows, which makes sense for some parts of the country but here would just be silly) or the hybrid since my drive to work is about 22 miles one way. The problem I'm having with the choice is that I believe I'm killing the engine in the car I have now (and possibly the last Honda I had) by driving a little harder than it can manage, and the regual Civics now have 140 horse power instead of mine's 129 (the hybrid has 110). On the other hand, the hybrid has climate control, and hear me out. It doesn't seem like a big deal but it seems to save energy because the computer is programmed to recognise the actual temperature you set it to instead of just making the car hotter or colder. For example, my mom always has the car set to 72 degrees, and instead of just having it be slightly warmer than normal, you can feel the car trying to cool itself down to 72 degrees if you've left it out on the sun or warm itself up if you're driving on a cool night. Yeah, I know, it's silly toys that really shouldn't affect my decision, but....TOYS!!1!!1!!1!! Oh well, it'll all come down to money...I hate money.