Okay, already, Semagic. And other stuff.
Every time I log in to post something, Semagic harasses me about people's birthdays.
So I would like to wish apple_pi a warm and wonderful birthday! I don't know you personally, but I wanted to thank you for all the amazing fic you've given us and for being an awesome person.
And happy early birthday to sadiane, my fellow Portlandiaphile. Have a good one!
In other news, I finally booked our Vancouver hotel room. I was debating whether I wanted to stay at the Metrotown Hilton (where the con is being held) because it's a four star Hilton hotel and therefore a tad expensive. I know lots of people share rooms with a group to cut costs, but since I'm dragging J with me I figured we'd need a private room. Also, I snore. And I don't mean just sawing logs - I mean chopping down the entire forest type snoring. I figure it's better not to subject anyone but J to this since J's already used to it. Thus, private room.
I was weighing cost with the ease of already being at the con's location. It's nice not to drive back and forth, but is it worth $800? I considered the lesser-priced Holiday Inn just down the way, and the cheap but fairly decent Ramada Inn about 5 minutes away by car. In the end, I found a decent deal for the Hilton from 1800hotels.com. $160/night after taxes for 4 nights ($640), which is only about $30 more than Holiday Inn. It's still expensive, but around $100 less than a lot of the other sites (including Hilton's). $640, I found, was the magic number that I could tolerate for the sake of ease of use and having a fun, stress-free time versus not spending an arm and a leg. My brain considers it on the reasonable side of expensive, I suppose.
Lastly, having a week off work is great. They needed me a lot until the big event was over, but I haven't been scheduled to work again until next week. Which is awesome for me, since I want money to defray the costs of VanCon but I'm not hard pressed to work full time anymore. And it makes me not hate working there since I don't have to deal with the daily grind. But it amuses me no end that they constantly call me to see if I can fill in for other people. Why didn't you just schedule me instead of all those people who can't manage to make it to work?
I just stopped answering the phone, since I'm working on a major reorg of my hallway closet and don't have the time or inclination to deal with them. You may think closet reorganization is nothing, but my hall closet is B-I-G, say 3.5 feet deep by 15 feet wide (which is sort of weird for a one bedroom apartment, since that's big enough for two and a half side-facing twin beds. I guess it's time to start that child labor sweatshop in my hall closet!). And it's crammed full of boxes from moving. Since it was a stealth move, we didn't have time to sort everything. Well, now I have time, but my living room looks like a bunch of boxes exploded in it, and I don't intend to leave it that way just because work needs more reliable employees.
While I whittle away at the boxes, I'm rewatching season one of CSI. Oh, Gil, how I miss you! I think the real you got lost somewhere after the end of S4 and never came back.
It's funny watching these PAL rips of the DVDs, because everybody's voice is too high until I adjust VLC to compensate. There's also the strangeness of hearing the original instrumental theme song instead of the bombastic clip of "Who Are You?" (the rights to the song hadn't been secured for regions 2 and 4 at time of release, though the Who are still credited, lols). It feels like a completely different show without the introduction by the Who. I think I like it better. ::hides from the torch-burning mob::
One last thing: Sara, stop breathing on the speculum to warm it up! Pamela Adler does not want that up her crotch now that you've gotten your cooties all over it. I don't care if she's in a coma, somewhere her mind is screaming, "THAT IS SO DISGUSTING! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PUTTING THAT THING?"
So I would like to wish apple_pi a warm and wonderful birthday! I don't know you personally, but I wanted to thank you for all the amazing fic you've given us and for being an awesome person.
And happy early birthday to sadiane, my fellow Portlandiaphile. Have a good one!
In other news, I finally booked our Vancouver hotel room. I was debating whether I wanted to stay at the Metrotown Hilton (where the con is being held) because it's a four star Hilton hotel and therefore a tad expensive. I know lots of people share rooms with a group to cut costs, but since I'm dragging J with me I figured we'd need a private room. Also, I snore. And I don't mean just sawing logs - I mean chopping down the entire forest type snoring. I figure it's better not to subject anyone but J to this since J's already used to it. Thus, private room.
I was weighing cost with the ease of already being at the con's location. It's nice not to drive back and forth, but is it worth $800? I considered the lesser-priced Holiday Inn just down the way, and the cheap but fairly decent Ramada Inn about 5 minutes away by car. In the end, I found a decent deal for the Hilton from 1800hotels.com. $160/night after taxes for 4 nights ($640), which is only about $30 more than Holiday Inn. It's still expensive, but around $100 less than a lot of the other sites (including Hilton's). $640, I found, was the magic number that I could tolerate for the sake of ease of use and having a fun, stress-free time versus not spending an arm and a leg. My brain considers it on the reasonable side of expensive, I suppose.
Lastly, having a week off work is great. They needed me a lot until the big event was over, but I haven't been scheduled to work again until next week. Which is awesome for me, since I want money to defray the costs of VanCon but I'm not hard pressed to work full time anymore. And it makes me not hate working there since I don't have to deal with the daily grind. But it amuses me no end that they constantly call me to see if I can fill in for other people. Why didn't you just schedule me instead of all those people who can't manage to make it to work?
I just stopped answering the phone, since I'm working on a major reorg of my hallway closet and don't have the time or inclination to deal with them. You may think closet reorganization is nothing, but my hall closet is B-I-G, say 3.5 feet deep by 15 feet wide (which is sort of weird for a one bedroom apartment, since that's big enough for two and a half side-facing twin beds. I guess it's time to start that child labor sweatshop in my hall closet!). And it's crammed full of boxes from moving. Since it was a stealth move, we didn't have time to sort everything. Well, now I have time, but my living room looks like a bunch of boxes exploded in it, and I don't intend to leave it that way just because work needs more reliable employees.
While I whittle away at the boxes, I'm rewatching season one of CSI. Oh, Gil, how I miss you! I think the real you got lost somewhere after the end of S4 and never came back.
It's funny watching these PAL rips of the DVDs, because everybody's voice is too high until I adjust VLC to compensate. There's also the strangeness of hearing the original instrumental theme song instead of the bombastic clip of "Who Are You?" (the rights to the song hadn't been secured for regions 2 and 4 at time of release, though the Who are still credited, lols). It feels like a completely different show without the introduction by the Who. I think I like it better. ::hides from the torch-burning mob::
One last thing: Sara, stop breathing on the speculum to warm it up! Pamela Adler does not want that up her crotch now that you've gotten your cooties all over it. I don't care if she's in a coma, somewhere her mind is screaming, "THAT IS SO DISGUSTING! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU'RE PUTTING THAT THING?"