Currents of Time

In the past three days, I have nearly been sideswiped by someone in the other lane crossing over the yellow line no less than five times.

If I randomly stop updating, assume it is because I was finally hit and have been killed or put into a coma and sent back in time or something.


AND SO CONCLUDES TODAY'S ANNOUNCEMENT.


(Also, I woke up this morning at 5 am and promptly freaked out about a multitude of things, still none of which should have qualified as freak-out inducers. FUN. At this point, I'm not entirely convinced I haven't been struck and am, in fact, already in a coma and having a bizarre dream.)

... (ARE YOU ALL JUST FIGMENTS OF MY IMAGINATION??)

Despite making comments regarding myself, plane crashes, and Silent Hill that could only be taken as a strange way of tempting fate, the flights out and back were remarkably uneventful.

There was a bit of trouble getting out of JFK the first time. We had to get de-iced and then wait in line for clearance, and while we were puttering aimlessly around the runways, I was staring out the window (because I had a widow seat!) and... doom. A ways off, I could clearly see the shell of a plane. It was completely engulfed in flames and it was surrounded by the blinking lights of emergency vehicles. GAH!

Half a second later, the captain came over the comm and told us that what we on the left hand side were seeing was a drill. Still, was a bit of a panicky thrill for a moment. There's too much "ill" in this paragraph.


Also, we flew Jet Blue, which has individual televisions for each seat, and as I was flipping through in boredom while waiting for the plane to take off so I could turn on my CD player, I saw it received BBC America. It was playing an advertisement for Life on Mars, but it wasn't on until Tuesday (and we flew out on Wednesday and in on Monday). I was disappointed about that until Monday. I had the screen on as a light source, since the reading light was a stretch to reach and I was feeling lazy. I glanced up for whatever reason and saw an advertisement for Top Gear! It would be on at 8, and I gleefully realized we'd still be on the plane at that point. They had two, back to back. 8x4, followed by 8x3 (amphibious cars!) (I think it was "this week" followed by "last week" because "next week" will be 8x5), though they were edited some. They took out the news. I'll never forgive them. (In the second episode, they cut Philip Glenister as well. GRR!)


Trip itself was uneventful, but I did have fun Sunday, at least. Might make a post on that later.



Last Tuesday, as I was leaving the underground parking garage after class (we can use the state building's garage for free after 5, so I do!), I noticed a car. I like to look at cars. Anyway, this one looked a bit old, but I dismissed my initial identification of it because no way would a Datsun be here in Vermont, and certainly not in the winter with the car-eating road salt everywhere. I slowed to look for a logo or anything, but it didn't have anything on the front and, though I looped behind it to exit, there was a car on that side, so I couldn't see its back end.

Whatever. Maybe it was just some normal looking car with a long "nose."


It was there again tonight. So after class, I took the longer way back to my car (which is to say, I walked through the garage instead of taking the elevator from the second floor of the building to the second level of the garage) so I could get a better look at it. I should not have doubted myself! It was indeed a Datsun. And, ha, it was a Datsun 280ZX. (Three of my favorite - in as much as I can actually use that word in reference to this series, since it can apply to about everyone and everything - Transformers G1 characters turn into that model. Prowl, Bluestreak, and Smokescreen, though Smokey's slightly modified.) (I was actually very pleased with myself. That was what I'd initially jumped to, though the model was only because of the three listed above. I kind of wanted to be right, just because Datsuns are so neat looking - though most cars from that time are - and was almost worried it would just turn out to be some modern car and I'd just gone mad or something.)

This Datsun was blue and gray... Fic-writing comes after me again. (It keeps doing this to me after I finish a big scene. It that a good sign or a bad sign? ... Mostly it's a little freaky.) (And, oh, it would be Bluestreak. Gah, creepiness. I may never forgive myself for "Depths.") (I saw Alternators Sideswipe in California, too. Saw some Datsuns, too, but none of them were from the Z series.)

It was very fun to drive around California and spot all the old and/or fancy expensive cars that simply don't exist out here, or at least not in large numbers. Whoo, pretty cars.


(Bonus fun story: my boss has known for a while that I needed all of last weekend off, but apparently work called the house on Sunday to ask if I could come in early to work. Whoops, whoever made the schedule. I'll probably get yelled at next time I'm in, but, like I told my mother, the worst they can do is fire me, and then I wouldn't have to work there anymore.)

Our car is possessed.

Our van's been acting a bit... odd lately. The engine's made funny noises and, okay, honestly, big, powerful engine or no, it shouldn't be able to coast at 40 for a couple miles. (I had both feet flat on the carpeting. The car then accelerated to the new 50 on the slight downhill at the end of the 40 stretch and stayed there for another, oh, half a mile, before I had to finally give it some gas because it was a steep hill and the car behind me wasn't happy with my going "only" the speed limit.)

... Nor should it be accelerating on an uphill, especially not when one is applying pressure to the brakes to avoid hitting the car ahead.

I told my parents about both incidences, but they didn't think anything of it.


Mom just called from town. She'd gone out for groceries and some supplies from the hardware store and brought the dog (and so was in the van). The engine was acting very odd, racing and making funny noises. She went into the hardware store and bought whatever she needed, and when she came back out - mind you, she had her keys with her - the engine was racing.


O... kay.


So now I'm going to pick her and Max up because she doesn't want to drive it and I don't really blame her.


Edit:
Van is now sitting, abandoned (and completely unloved by Mom, who admits to hoping someone will be stupid enough to steal it), in a parking lot in town. We're probably going to have to get it towed to wherever we decide to take it for service.

... We can't afford for the thing to keep breaking down like this, not with the repairs we've had to make to the house this year. x_x

They stole our phone. I WILL NEVER FORGIVE THEM. To add insult to injury, despite our lack of phone, we still receive calls, and so must run across the store like useless twits, looking for the nearest available phone. Often only to run back to check the cakes in the display, or to rummage through the bins of decorations to see if we have Cinderella, or whatever it is they want.

I wonder what they are going to take next. There are not many things left - we are mostly limited to the oven and the counters. If they do not finish these renovations soon, I fear I shall go insane.

Saw three Corvettes, today, though! Two different black ones and a red one. They are such pretty, pretty cars. bwee!


Not sure what else I need to do to convince people to write me letters. Writing to them doesn't work, writing back to them on the very, very rare occasional that they do write doesn't work. Perhaps it is all of the ridiculous doodles I put throughout. Guys! If you do not want to write me letters, please just say so and stop claiming you are really, really going to (really), because it makes me sad then, when you do not. I am starved for any kind of social interaction, and it is not fair to hold out such a tempting morsel and then draw it back away as you are. Fiends, the lot of you. (To be perfectly fair, I do have one person I have a sort-of-fairly-regularly-almost letter-writing thing going on with. Long live snail mail!)


This song is annoying. No, no, it is not tricky to "rock a rhyme that's right on time." How could that possibly be tricky? Better yet, why are you bothering to sing about how it is tricky, as opposed to just attempting it? Unless this song is supposed to show us your cleverness. NOT CLEVER. Also, ANNOYING. Certainly not tricky, though, I concede that we are, perhaps, working with different definitions of the word, "tricky."


Meanwhile, in the ongoing saga of, "I'm Not British, I Swear," I was apparently adopting some sort of accent this evening. I was unaware of it until my mother asked about it. I hold no delusions that it actually sounded even remotely British (though that is what she called it), as I am Not British (and should I ever find myself on the other side of the ocean and am struck by one of these apparent vocal glitches, I am quite sure I would be laughed off the land mass. This same idea is what kept me from attempting much Japanese while in Japan), but it was a bit disconcerting. Where was it coming from? Why? How did I not notice my manner of speech changing? CURSE YOU, BRAIN. (The other possibility, the one I favor, is that the ninety-plus-degrees-plus-humidity weather has fried her and she was experiencing auditory hallucinations. Or, my father was watching Doctor Who recently. Maybe she was hearing some of that somehow.)


Could this entry be any more random? (Perhaps the heat has gotten to me.) I think it could. Aniko and I should never be allowed to speak to each other after 11 pm. I end up helping her transform her Alternators (long distance! It is a good thing I have a digital camera, or else I'd never have been able to film Wheeljack's transformation for her!) though she does not need help with her really small ones (she has the same two as me, and I call them WSTs, even though it is wrong!), and then she ends up telling me what she is doing with them (that is most of the really short story behind this picture and all its relatives), and then she convinces me I need to write stories about it. So we get things like this:

( This ties into the TF/TG crossover somehow. )

I am going to bed now.

I generally try to be home before midnight, but sometimes one is in situations where this is not possible. Going to see a movie will occasionally cause this (on that note, Pan's Labyrinth was incredible and more people should know about it and see it). Nearly ran into a deer on the way home, though. Came over a hill in a dark stretch of road and WAH!

That... isn't the problem, here. I mean, I missed the deer (hence the 'nearly' in the above paragraph, you know).

( Not about deer. )

I've mentioned before that I work in a bakery, I believe. Well, today when I went in, things were backed up (more so than usual), and after a quick inquiry I found out it was because the oven hadn't been working yesterday so this morning they'd had the maintenance guys in fixing it. They'd left, but the oven still wasn't working. It'd go up to whatever temp you'd set it at, stay there for all of fifteen minutes, suddenly drop off and become very cold, stay that way for again about fifteen minutes, and then heat back up. It was impossible to bake a bunch of things because they take longer than the oven would stay warm for.

We did at least manage to make a few rounds of bread (which is a huge seller). Maintenance was back in when we left. Hopefully they'll have it working by the time I have to go back in tomorrow...

So, work's going okay so far. Today was only my third day, and I still don't know how to really do too much, but I am learning! I'm a little sore from lifting and carrying around racks of muffins and cookies and pies, and scrubbing counters and floors and... everything else all day, though. Stupid neck.


For the last few days (pretty much since my last entry...) the internet has been either down completely or very slow and flaky. It's fixed now, thankfully. ...not an addict, really! ._.


So, obviously I have been watching too much G1. Very recently, I somehow ended up watching the second half of season two, the movie, and all of season 3 in the course of about two days, so my brain is a little dead. I blame Mike. He's the one who wanted to watch it. Ignore that I could have said no or something. He lets me pause the episode and run commentary and spout off random facts or compare continuities halfway through the episode.

Friday, while I was driving to work, I was followed (rather closely) for a ways by a bright yellow, shiny sports car (nothing really super fancy, but it was a very pretty car). Mostly I was too busy looking forward (eyes on the road and all), but tailgaters make me a little nervous so I kept glancing back at it in the rearview mirror and mostly trying to ignore it as they (couldn't see the driver at all, so I don't know if it was a guy or a girl...) practically drove up my exhaust pipe and occasionally drifted side to side and stuff. Impatient driver or something. The last light before my work turn-off was red, so I sat in the left turn lane and zoned out. The left lane gets a turn arrow a few seconds before the 'go straight' lane changes to green, so I was halfway around the corner when the yellow car (who was in the other lane) completely floors it and charges through the intersection - there was just a yellow blur in the rear-view mirror. ... For perhaps an incredibly stupid reason, I giggled insanely until I pulled into the parking lot a few minutes later. ...I've started mentally referring to it as Sunstreaker, even though I know it wasn't a Lambo. I suspect I will be maimed for this someday, but geez.


I finally posted that XI-bit (I put it here a few weeks ago) up on FF.net. No reviews, but it's been getting hits so, in theory, people have been reading it. That's more than enough for me.


I have an irrational desire for more icons. There is no such thing as too many icons! And I really, really need a Transformers one. I don't want ads, though. Hm. Dilemmas.


...My brother gets good Chinese and sushi once a week in his cafeteria. *sigh* Some people get all the luck.


Whatever. Gonna replay Dirge of Cerberus or something now.

4 am is an unholy hour. May I never have to get up that early to drive someone to the airport again. I'd go back to bed, but now I've been up for too long to fall back asleep. Stupid body.


Fears of falling asleep at the wheel on the way home alone and the chances that I pulled a somewhat illegal stunt in the airport parking lot aside (what else was I supposed to do? x_x), Mom's on her way to California now, so the rest of us will half-starve for a week. (That is a lie - we can make food.) She remembered halfway to the airport that she had forgotten to grab the cheese and fudge for her mother, so I need to find those and mail them sometime later today. Like, after the sun has come up.


I finally have a job interview on Thursday. I don't care that I promised to work for that man if he hired me and I don't care that I could walk to work. He's has two months and I needed a job in June. *grumble whine* My brother says the woman I have to talk to is very nice (yes, yes, I put in for a job at the same place my brother works. At least I picked a different department. They're the only ones hiring right now. Leave me alone).


Half of my G1 DVDs are out on loan again. For all my complaining, I sure go along with most anything people want me to do. "*whine whine complain insult grumble complain* *does it anyway*" is, perhaps, an odd way to live, but it works. ...Though sometimes I find it simultaneously funny and sad when people are actually afraid of me. It's not like I've ever actually hurt anyone. I just complain about everything. A lot.

I can't wait to hear some of his reactions to some of the stuff they put in that show. I warned him to never try and apply logic or expect any sort of continuity, but he's not good at ignoring things like some of the glaring animation or plot errors present. (Well, everyone notices them, it's just a matter of how well you can laugh it off.)