Author: gallopingcow

I woke up with a pretty wicked headache this morning, so making it to work was a bit rough. I tried out the new straightening brush I got over the weekend, and it did a great job of keeping the ends of my hair from getting super tangled throughout the day. I even got some compliments for having my hair down, but I was feeling too lost to take advantage of my diva moment. I just couldn’t find anything to focus on, so I picked at a few things throughout the day to keep myself from getting behind.

Dinner was spring rolls with my parents, and I got to watch my sister help my mom with her iPhone some more. The more I watch them, the less I understand why someone in either of their positions would choose Apple as a platform. What I really miss more than anything else is my old Palm Prē.

Once I got home, I played a few losing rounds of Overwatch and Rocket League for their seasonal rewards.

It’s only logical.

I always manage to kill half of my weekend in a way even less productive than watching television. I don’t even know where most of my time went. I did play some Overwatch for the seasonal loot boxes, and a couple rounds of Rocket League with Josh and Johnny.

Clinton stopped by while he was in town, and we watched a couple episodes of Letterkenny. It’s one of those shows with super fast dialog, so I really need to watch it at about half speed to get what’s going on. It’s seemed pretty funny though.

I went to my parents’ for dinner, but bún riêu didn’t really hit any spots. Spring rolls tomorrow, though.

Pitter patter, let’s get at ‘er.

I woke up around 8:30 this morning and couldn’t ever get back to sleep. I laid in bed for a couple extra hours, but the sun was just pouring into my room. Eventually I got up and started cleaning up the house. I stopped at one point to watch Spider-Man: Homecoming, then took a late shower. My parents stopped in for a couple minutes to give me some harvested bananas and persimmons.

Mayra invited me to New China for dinner. Afterward, she, Armando, and I came back to my house and watched Scary Movie. It was a real blast from the past. Pop culture jokes basically serve as a reminder that those things happened.

You jumped off a sign and landed on your face.

The most remarkable thing I did all day was click a button to make a paperclip.

I had lunch with my junior high gang in the library, then spent the afternoon getting a few more computers out.

After work, I came home and played some Rocket League by myself.

This week’s gone by fast.

But they usually do.

I was stuck at Oakland pretty much all day today for a bit more testing. Fortunately, Ben came to help me run some cable that needed to be run, so my entire day wasn’t just a bust while I was there. It was super aggravating that I didn’t really resolve a single technology issue for them. Literally the only troubleshooting steps they have to follow are to restart the computer or move the kid to a different computer, but still I get pulled into a room because presumably I have some sort of techno-magic touch.

Casey is moving to a different campus, so they had a goodie table for her along with leftover chili dogs from their O’Down, so I had lunch with Becky there. Later in the afternoon, I went back to the office and found myself sleepy from sitting all day, so I just ended up chatting there until it was time to leave. I felt a bit guilty though, and ended up going to the junior high to wrap up a few loose ends, then took a new wireless access point back to Oakland on the way home to finish off the cable run from earlier in the day.

I had to get some gas, so I ended up stopping at AT&T to chat for a while before eventually making it home to some solo Rocket League. Eventually Josh came on, and we played doubles until bedtime.

At last, the war on drugs is over. We won.

I got a lot accomplished today at work. I really am almost done deploying new teacher computers, and I should be down to just a few trivial cable runs. I worked through lunch just because I was on a roll.

After work, I went by my parents’ house, but they were gone to pick up Dad’s car. While I was there, Bác Vân called to let me know she was cooking egg rolls, so I went home and had those for dinner instead of digging out more leftovers. I spent most of the rest of the evening completing the setup of my new phone, but ran into a snag when I tried to activate it on Sprint’s network. The new phone didn’t come with a SIM card, and Sprint links their devices to their SIM cards, so when I plugged the MEID of the new phone into the website, it spat back out the SIM number it was expecting to have come with the phone. Mom and Dad came by right about then just to say they didn’t even get the car, and I was already frustrated with phone stuff, so I super didn’t care.

After they left, I started a chat session with HTC, who has always proven to have excellent customer service when I’ve reached out to them for anything. He assured me I wouldn’t be charged for not sending my old phone back in time, and escalated my ticket to someone for additional help. Maybe they’ll swap out my replacement for a new device!

I wound down with a few rounds of Rocket League with Josh, and then encountered the weirdest spam messages I have ever seen in my life while composing this entry. I remember the good old days when I got spam about Britney Spears shooting down spy satellites with her vagina. Now it’s all flat earth conspiracy WordPress spam, and all I can think is that someone needs to reset the simulation. We went terribly wrong somewhere, and we need to analyze the data and start over fresh.

U.S. Attorney General Seeks Custody of Paris Hilton, Intends to Confine Her at Gitmo

Not much notable about work today. I spent all morning extracting headphone plugs that had broken off inside of iPads. I never got to several of the things I wanted to do because I didn’t have certain parts on me, and I got pulled to hang a TV after lunch. Lunch was fair though. Quiznos with Ben, Gary, Zach, and Sara. After work, I went to my parents’ house to finish the bowl of food I left yesterday, then stayed to show Mom how to use her Google Home to cast media to a Chromecast I left them. It’s upsetting to be the only one with any drive to be on the cutting edge sometimes.

Once I got back home for the evening, I tried wrapping up the migration from my old HTC 10 to my new one. It seems silly to do this all now just to have to do it again in a month, but I’ll probably mostly start fresh on the Pixel when it comes in. The UI may actually be different enough that the layout I’ve been using for years won’t work as well there, but time will tell.

Heartburn tonight. Get it together.

I made myself wake up at a semi-regular hour this morning after staying up until almost 5 the night before. It was more or less a lazy day. Around lunch time, I got an email from Domino’s telling me that my reward points would expire if I didn’t earn any more today, so I decided to pick up some wings and finally try their philly cheese steak sandwich. My old coworker Neal met me at the drive-through window, and we chatted for a while until my food was ready. The sandwich was good, though it seemed a bit light on the toppings. I also tried their mango habanero wings, and I found them to be a bit sweeter than I was craving. Probably best to stick with buffalo wings there.

After lunch, I played a bit of Rocket League with Josh and a very frustrated Johnny. That really can tend to suck the fun out of a game. Eventually I got around to showering. I felt a bit tired, so I ran a bath about halfway through and just laid there for a while.

When dinner time rolled around, I went to my parents’ for some leftovers, but when Mom said leftovers, she really meant she was going to cook more food. I don’t understand. I started to feel a bit sick to the stomach after eating some, so I came home and sat around while I started setting up my replacement HTC 10. I also found a (conspiracy?) site by Max Landis where he dissects Carly Rae Jepsen’s pop music to discover the true meaning behind it all.

And all that we could do with this emotion.

I slept quite a bit better last night, and felt comfortable enough to sleep in until nearly noon. Dad made pancakes, so I went there for breakfast for lunch and made a short animated Jif. Afterward, I came home to rewatch the Final Cut of Blade Runner. I’m really glad I watched it again after so long, because I basically didn’t really remember any important details from watching it years ago. It looked great in 1080p even after all these years.

I went back to my parents’ house for dinner before meeting with Aaron, his dad, and TJ to go to Conway for the new Blade Runner 2049. As usual with the late shows, there was hardly anyone else there. The movie was awesome, and the story didn’t ever feel like it was dragging on in spite of how long the movie actually ran. As we left, Aaron spotted a red balloon someone had tied to a railing to copy It. I think we’re planning a trip back for Thor: Ragnarok, but we’ll rewatch the first and/or second one here first.

Sometimes to love someone, you’ve got to be a stranger.