A lunchtime conversation between me and Rahul:

4 tires, 1 rim, and nearly a month's rent later, my car is back and kicking. Ah, it's wonderful to be driving in the left lane again. The new Yokohama Avid V4S tires feel a bit...softer? than the old RE92s, so they are noticably quieter on the freeway. This is nice because I don't have to further damage my already fragile hearing just to hear crappy songs on the radio. Reading the reviews on Tire Rack, I'm really glad I decided to go with the Yokohama tires; not only are they much cheaper, they are rated #1 in the High Performance All-Season category. w00t!

Other randomness:

• I've decided another one of my minor life goals is to use the phrase: "Come with me if you want to live." I suppose that this first requires me to become some sort of freedom fighter, though.
• I recently realized that there is a Taco Bell drive-through right behind my apartment complex. Sometimes late at night I would hear the sounds of people speaking really loudly filtering in through my window. At first I thought it was someone on their cell phone in the courtyard, but unless my neighbors have an unhealthy fascination with tacos and burritos, I don't think that's it.
• Gmail seems to have quietly changed its URL to http://mail.google.com/
• Everyone should read the following books: The Cricket in Times Square, The Great Brain, and D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. The greek myths book was, and continues to be, one of my favorite books of all time. My dad gave me a copy when I was a kid and I read it so much that it literally fell apart.

I called my dad this afternoon and we talked for a bit. He's off helping my sister pack, and I awoke him from one of his famous naps. Father's Day is one of those holidays that I'm never really sure what to do with. Presents? Dinners? Pats on the back? I suppose it's just a day for you to think about your father, and what he means to you. Without launching into a long sappy essay complete with: "'F' is for 'Fun' which I always have with Dad! 'A' is for 'Amazing' and...", I shall say only this: I am my father's daughter. Happy Father's Day!

Yesterday I went on a run at the Dish, which always sucks, but makes me feel like I've actually worked out. Afterwards Buddy came over to watch Hero (the Visual Effects Supervisor works at EA now), then we had lunch at Maru Ichi (mmm...cold noodle plate...) and bummed around Mountain View.

I ran a few errands in the afternoon, where I discovered that grocery shopping while you have literally no food in your apartment is a strange ordeal.

I also read (and finished) Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation, which Buddy lent to me. It's a really enjoyable book (I actually laughed out loud at a few parts), but I still stand by my assertion that whatever your intentions, you cannot correct someone's grammar or spelling without sounding like an ass. However, I just spent a couple minutes staring at the words "Fathers' Day", wondering to myself whether that apostrophe belongs there. Damn you, Lynn Truss.

Oh, and I'm at work.

Edit: Changed "Fathers' Day" to "Father's Day" because that seems to be the most common punctuation. Gah. Next year I'm just typing "HAPPYFATHERZDAYOMG!"

Another week come and gone. On Tuesday we had a special preview screening of Batman Begins through EA. I liked the movie quite a lot, but it's been pointed out that maybe it was just good compared to the previous craptastic Batman movies, which shall remain unnamed.

The cable guy never called me like he was supposed to, so I called Comcast again on Monday morning to reschedule the service for Thursday. On Thursday morning, the guy came and to my dismay, it was the same guy who couldn't get it working the week before.

Cable guy: "Have I been here before?"
Me: "Yeah, you couldn't get it working."
Cable guy: "Did you get it working??"
Me: "....no.... That's why you're here..."

So, long story short, he still couldn't get it working. It appears to be a bad line connecting my place to the cable box, but what I don't understand is why he didn't test that last Saturday, instead of wasting my time yet again. He is *supposed* to call me to reschedule for Saturday to put a new line in, but I remain extremely unhopeful. I generally consider myself a patient person, but nothing frustrates me more than people who can't do their jobs. I have no expectations from this guy but to get my cable TV working, and he hasn't done that yet. Bleh.

Thursday I was supposed to bring my car in to get fixed (that's when the new rim was coming in) but I was dumb and didn't ask them to order tires until Thursday morning. I misunderstood them and thought they had different (i.e. cheaper) brands in stock, but it turns out they only have the original (i.e. expensive) tires in stock. So they're ordering in new Yokohama tires for me, which should be in on Monday. Until then, I continue to drive 55 on the freeway. Yippee!

This morning I finally was able to sign up for DSL. It's supposed to be active in a week. W00t.

Work has been stressful. This is how I'll explain my work situation. Suppose you've been given a large task, say, building a car. You've never built a car before, so your boss tells you to talk to Bob, who built a really nice car last year. Think Ferrari. You go to Bob, and he launches into an explanation of how to build a car, e.g. how the engine works, the fuel system, where the wheels go, etc. You're pretty sure everything he's saying is 100% correct, but the entire time, you're thinking to yourself, "What's a wheel?"

Fast forward a week or so, and you think you've figured out what a wheel is. Maybe you've built some sort of oval-shaped thing. Not quite right, but it would probably get the job done. You also kind of know what an engine is, or at least you've seen a picture of one. You're pretty proud of your progress.

Another few days pass, and you speak to your customers. They're really excited about this car. They're talking about the trim, paint color, leather seats, etc., and how much better it's going to be than this scooter that they've been driving around. Sure, the scooter works to get them from point A to point B, but it's just so slow. Your car is going to be so much cooler! You smile and nod, and talk about A/C and power windows, but in your head, you're still trying to figure out just how many wheels are supposed to go on the damn thing. Oh, and if you could get it done a couple weeks early, that would be awesome.

It's gonna be an interesting few weeks.

I had an off weekend. Last Friday was the aforementioned tire 'splosion, which, the more I think about it, was completely and utterly my fault. And I'm pretty sure I just butchered every rule of grammar in the preceding sentence. Anyway, it turns out that not only will I have to replace all 4 tires (the remaining 3 were too worn), I also have to replace the rim (which won't be in until Thursday), and they won't know if there's suspension damage until they get the new tire on Thursday. I'm an idiot.

On Saturday the cable guy came to install my cable, but he couldn't get it working. He kept saying it was my TV, but I kept arguing with him that it wasn't my TV, and played some stuff from the VCR to prove the cable coax input was working. He said someone would call on Sunday to come back and try to get it working, but nobody called. I had to call them this morning and reschedule for Thursday morning.

On Sunday I exchanged my TV, and fortunately this one seems to be working fine.

Throughout the weekend I was having strange dreams which left me feeling really uneasy. I don't even remember what they were about, but I awoke feeling disturbed every morning. Strange.

Besides those things, I actually did have a pretty good weekend. Friday night I saw Star Wars again with Peter (at a DLP theater! It's pretty neat; you can actually see the difference with digital projection. Although Peter pointed out that the added clarity also makes it possible to count the pores on Natalie Portman's face.)

Saturday I went on our weekly run, and then went to Ikea with Peter where I picked up some stuff for my new place. Saturday evening I saw Saving Face with Babs, Florence, and May Ling. It was good. Joan Chen was a really good Chinese Mom.

Sunday I went to the Farmer's Market, did some cleaning, and then went to Costco and Target to get yet more stuff for my apartment. Later that night I saw Mr. and Mrs. Smith, which was entertaining. Beautiful people and guns. It's a winning combination.

This morning I attempted to sign up for DSL service (ironically, I have to do it online) and discovered that I had to either sign up for automatic bill pay or make a $200 advance payment on my account to do so. So I signed up for automatic bill pay and I still couldn't order DSL, so I called back and it apparently takes 48-72 hours for the information to propogate through the system, so I'll have to wait until later in the week to sign up.

Work is and will be stressful for a while. I hope I don't explode.

This afternoon I had to go home to meet the Best Buy technician to take a look at my TV (picture was tilted; going to exchange it; new one coming Sunday.) On the way home, when I was a couple minutes from work, all of the sudden BANG! I hit the curb in my car.

I was in disbelief -- did I just space out and run into the curb? Since I was so close to work I kept driving, and noticed that my tire was making that "thwup thwup" sound that made me realize it had gone flat. I parked my car on the roof of our garage (so I had room) and took a look at my tire.

There was a 1-cm hole in the tire (you could see the entry path of whatever it was that punctured the tire), and basically all the air was out. My rim was also scraped up from hitting the curb.

I'm pretty sure I didn't just space and hit the curb, so I think what happened was that the tire blowing out caused the car to swerve and hit the curb. I'm not really sure -- it happened so fast.

Fortunately, one of the QA guys offered to help me put on the spare. I'm getting a new tire (or possibly set of tires...with AWD the tire wear has to be balanced) on Monday, so until then I sit here, fuming and confused.

Poo.

The move went well this weekend. My new place is really nice. On Sunday I had dinner with the manager and some of the residents out by the pool. Grilled salmon, salad, twice-backed potatoes, and pie. Mmmm... They're mostly older than I am, but they're all really nice. A few engineers and a few Bush-Bashers as well. Enzo has figured out how to use his doggy door. It's very cute. No intornet yet, so cell phone is still the best way to reach me.

Saturday afternoon May Ling and I played soccer and basketball with the usual crew. I scored two goals in soccer but my basketball was astonishingly bad. May Ling, on the other hand, was the superstar of our team and scored in the double-digits.

Last week my right shoulder was feeling really sore at work, so I switched my mouse to my left hand. It's mostly okay, but I definitely don't have the dexterity of my right hand, leading to many random clicks and drags.

Over these past couple of days, I've had two bafflingly pleasant phone interactions with customer service reps. I think it's one of the signs of the coming apocalypse.

Finally, a slightly belated Happy Birthday to Marsha, and another Happy Birthday to Florence!

Link dump:

• Dreams Made Real. Read the bottom part about the 100th Anniversary of Jules Verne's death, and be sure to follow the link for some incredible pictures and video.
• Rapid Afterimage Effect. Crazy optical illusion. Thanks to Yar for the link.
• The Movie Trailer Generator. Thanks again to Yar for the link.

I likely won't have intornet access (or it will be very intermittant) this weekend. If'n you need to get a hold of me, please call.

Had a good long weekend. On Saturday it was just Buddy and I for our weekend run, so he attempted (with some success) to push me to run faster. We ran between 10:30 - 10:45 min/mile which is fast for me. Not for most people though... That afternoon I played tennis racquet baseball (really really fun) and basketball with Yar and co. That night I went out with Buddy and Cheryl. We had an...interesting time.

Sunday was pretty much a day of nothingness.

Monday morning I watched Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow which was not as bad as I thought it would be, but not great either. Gwyneth Paltrow really phoned it in on that one, lending credence to my belief that the making of the movie was the result of some sort of mass blackmailing of its stars. Later I went to Buddy, Marc, Scott, and Ash's rockin' Memorial Day barbeque, which was tons of fun. Got to hang out with lots of friends, including a very very drunk Corey.

Buddy sent me this video. It's very funny/sad.

Changes are occuring tomorrow. Should be good.

Edit: Forgot to mention that my team at work got the "Teamwork" award at our last company meeting. Nothing really comes with it except a"T" trophy (which we must return next quarter), some company-wide recognition, and a parking space that we must somehow split between the three of us. Woo!