Why do I always end up moving in the middle of the summer? Okay, so when I moved to Portland, it was in the middle of winter, but for the most part, I usually find myself moving in the summer, and unpacking boxes is ten times as hard to do when it's hot. I'm waiting for there to be another freak rainstorm. If there is, I may just call in sick and spend the whole day cleaning. If there isn't, I may just have a day where I go to bed as soon as I get home, and then get up at three or four in the morning to clean while it is a little cooler.

Speaking of getting up too early, I've been thinking about my alarm clock issues lately. I am constantly trying to MacGyver different ways to force myself to get up when my alarm first goes off, but my body never wants to get up until it has to. My actually alarm clock is too quite, so I mainly use my cell phone. I try setting my phone on top of an energy drink. I try putting it just out of reach. I try switching the ring tone to the most obnoxious one I can find. I try placing the phone inside something that will remind me of something I have to do that requires me getting up early, like wrapping it in a bill I have to pay or a letter I have to mail. None of these methods are particularly effective, though. My latest idea was to hang a fishing line from my ceiling, and put a loop around my cell phone, and then dangle it like two or three feet above my head. The idea being that I will not be coordinated enough to reach it and turn it off without sitting up. I may just break down and buy a fancy annoying alarm, like the one that flies around like a helicopter, or the one that rolls all around your room like a deranged R2D2. I still think the best idea for an alarm ever is a thin, vibrating glove.

Actually, while looking up these alarms, I discovered a couple of ideas that I think would be very effective. The best idea was suggested by my roommate; an alarm clock that can't be turned off from the clock itself, but must be turned off from a remote switch that could be placed anywhere in the house. I couldn't believe something like this didn't already exist, so I did a little bit of research. My research turned up several patents for similar ideas, but no actual products. I was trying to figure out why so many people would have thought up this idea but never implemented it, and I realized that the reason is probably that the components for this type of decide could easily be used for nefarious purposes. It's a theory, anyway. I think I've found the closest thing, though. It's an alarm that has a target on it, and the only way to shut off the alarm is to aim the laser beam directly into the center of the target. The laser device could easily be hidden in another room.

Speaking of alarms and sleep, it's bedtime.

Today was going to be a movie catch-up day, but then it didn't end up being one. Errands and Doctor Who won out for today. The roommate and I went to Kitchen Kaboodle first of all, mainly to acquire a new wok. The one we got from IKEA for seven dollars lasted quite a few months, but we decided to invest in a real one this time. We also got a casserole dish and a replacement for one of our wooden spoons which had started to crack. Not the most exciting errand in the world, I suppose.

For lunch, we decided to make another attempt at getting fish burritos from Muchos Gracias. This time, they had some fish left. The burritos were as delicious as advertised. I tried their Muchos Fries, which actually turned out to be tater tots with cheese and sour cream. Odd. After lunch, it was a quick shopping trip to Trader Joe's to refill our pita and hummus supplies. That new edamame hummus they have is freaking delicious, by the way.

We spent the afternoon watching Doctor Who, before trying out our new wok with a delicious scallop and shrimp stir fry. ♥ The new wok is definitely an improvement over the old one. The old one was pretty flimsy, and prone to rust. I think this one should last us a good deal longer. Anyway, now that we are caught up on our Doctor Who seasons, we need to figure out how to watch the specials that have aired since then. I'm not sure how many there have been, or where to watch them.

Now to put my clothes in the dryer, and try to get some sleep.

In a very unusual fashion, today started out with me going out and seeing a movie with the roommate. Seeing a movie with the roommate is usually something that tends to happen in the evening, but we wanted to see Half-Blood Prince as soon as possible, so we went for the noon showing at Cinetopia. We did the Living Room Theater thing again, and I had the mac and cheese again, but it was definitely below average today. It was a bit runny and it tasted like it was missing at least one cheese. Apparently, mac and cheese cookery is a skill best left to the swing shift. Their fries continue to be freakishly delicious, though.

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince is absolutely fantastic. Easily approaching Prisoner of Azkaban for the best of the series, although I will need to see it a few more times for a definitive decision. This one is by the same director who did the last one, and he continues to absolutely excel in the art of streamlined adaptation. He seems to instinctively know which scenes need to be produced note for note, which scenes need to be completely snipped, and how to create brief new scenes that both fit the tone of the original and manage to fulfill the narrative functions of the removed bits. He can add a new thirty second scene that does the job of an entire chapter in the book. That is a pretty rare skill in my opinion. I also must give him credit for the smoothest blending of humor and darkness so far. This latest is probably the funniest movie, but it's also the most disturbing. Oh, and I must give special recognition to Jim Broadbent for his astounding, note-perfect performance as Slughorn. ♥

I was going to see some more movies before coming back home, but this one was so good that I didn't want to follow it up with anything, so I ended up just coming home. Unfortunately, the combination of heavy food at the theater and muggy weather caused me to pass out for the better part of the afternoon and evening, which is why I am up so late now. I'm really not even tired yet, but I have enlisted the aid of an odd beverage I found at the convenience store today. Apparently, the energy drink epidemic has become so calamitous that companies are now creating the opposite; relaxation drinks, or as I think of them, unergy drinks. I find the idea deeply disturbing, but I am about to drink one, and I will report back tomorrow with the results.

This weekend came just in time. The way my week at work has been going, I don't know that I could have survived even another five minutes on the phones. I swear, there is some kind of magical switch that gets flipped at around six, and it turns everybody who calls in into a gibbering idiot at best. Okay, maybe not everyone, but a surprising percentage. At seven, I flew out of there pretty fast, anyway.

So, ever since I was rejected for the Capital One card I applied for, I have been trying to get my credit reports from the agencies that Capital One checked with. I got Experian no problem, but I've had a lot of trouble with TransUnion. I called their support number and tried to request my free report. They said they couldn't verify me, and I would have to apply online. When I applied online, they said they couldn't verify me, and I would have to apply over the phone. At least it was a different phone number they gave me. I called this one, and they asked a disturbingly large group of questions, and were finally convinced I was who I said I was. They still wouldn't mail me the report, so I had to print it out from work.

The roommate and I finished our Harry Potter marathon today. We watched all five movies in four days. Not too shabby! We're both completely ready for the one, I think. I'm glad I just re-watched the movies as opposed to rereading the books. I'll save that for after I see the new movie, I think. We're doing a 21 and up noon showing in a living room theater. I am looking forward to eating the delicious macaroni and cheese of doom again! ♥ There is talk of an IKEA visit on the way back, but I'm not sure if that is going to happen or not. It mainly depends on how many thing I can remember that we need to get, I suppose!

Color me impressed. I mentioned that a customer service rep from Comcast caught my angry Tweet yesterday and reached out to me. I emailed back a pretty spectacular email of unhappiness. It went a little something like ( this! )

Early this morning, I received an email saying that they had received my message, and that somebody would be contacting me shortly. Shortly after my first break, I got a call from a woman who identified herself as Jane from Comcast, and left a phone number I have never heard of. She told me to call her at my earliest convenience.

I called her on my lunch break, and we talked for a good twenty minutes. She calmly listened to my complaints, detailed the mistakes that were made in Comcast's dealings with me, and offered to compensate me for those mistakes. She completely refunded the $50 fee for the service call, even though it was a legitimate fee, because they didn't inform me that I would be charged that fee. She offered to reinstate the deal I originally had on my Triple Play bundle for another year, just to keep me happy. Then we talked about what I said at the end of my email, about not really caring about anything other than having internet, and the DVR functionality. She built a bundle for me from scratch. It's not a bundle that exists. It's not a bundle that you can get by calling the regular support lines. It's exactly what I wanted, and is significantly cheaper than what I had before. I have to give credit to Comcast. Stalking Twitter is a brilliant idea, and I feel completely satisfied that my frustrations were dealt with. Apparently, this team is like the black ops department of Comcast. There are three of them, they work directly for the president of Customer Service, and they have pretty much unlimited power when it comes to pleasing customers. I approve.

Today was a tremendously long day. I had two calls that were over an hour. I made poor sailstosea wait in the car for forty-five minutes while I tried to get off of my last call. At least lunch was exceptionally delicious today, and I snagged cookies to compensate him. We immediately came back home, ordered pizza, and started in on Prisoner of Azkaban. (Still my favorite of the movies, although Order of the Phoenix is a VERY close second!) He is thoroughly hooked, as I knew he would be. Although I know I am going to regret it, we're going to watch Goblet of Fire tonight as well, so that we can watch Order of the Phoenix tomorrow night and see the new one at noon on Wednesday.

Well, I have an internet or two once again. More on that whole sordid story can be read at some point later this week when I have finished typing up all my journal entries. For now, we'll just say that the Comcast move was pretty much a complete mess, start to finish, and the experience has soured me on them so severely that I am counting the days until FiOS is available in my neck of the woods. Or, at least, I would be counting the days if I had any idea how many days there were going to be for me to count.

As some of you may have seen, I was upset enough by yesterday to rudely Tweet about Comcast on my Twitter stream. I did this at the suggestion of a couple of different people. Much to my surprise, I got a Tweet from somebody called ComcastDete, asking if there was anything he could do to help. Yes, apparently Comcast does monitor Twitter, looking for people talking smack about them. I told Dete that I didn't know if he could help, but that I had significantly more than 140 characters of complaining to do, and I asked him if there was an email address I could write to. He told me to email We_Can_help@cable.comcast.com, explaining my grievances clearly, and providing the account phone number. I sent him a HUGE email. It was so big, I had to stay an hour later at work to finish it. If he writes back, I will post our conversation.

Work had some very frustrating calls, but the first three quarters of the day were pretty slow, so I was able to accomplish a few things. I tried to get my Northwest Natural disconnected, but they couldn't do it online and the office was closed. I did purchase our Harry Potter tickets for Wednesday. I also ordered OotP on DVD, and that should arrive just in time for us to see it Tuesday night. I updated my address with HR at work. I'm sure there was at least one more thing that I did today and forgot to notate, but I am too tired to think of it now. I am also too tired to finish typing up the previous entries. It may be my weekend before I get around to that.

So, finally, the day of internet has arrived. Or so I thought. I still don't understand why it took them ten days to get somebody out here to flip a switch, but that's beside the point. I called Comcast on the 1st, and I told them that we were moving that day, that the old apartment was 304, and the new one was 303. They said the 11th was the soonest they could get somebody to come out. I had the day off, so I slept in the living room to make sure I would not miss them. I woke up at around nine, and then waited until eleven. No sign of them.

I called customer support, and asked what the hold up was. They looked up my account and told me that the technician was there as promised, but he knocked on the door and received no answer. He then tried to call and got a message saying the phone number was disconnected, possibly because he CALLED THE VOIP NUMBER FROM MY COMCAST ACCOUNT! The technician's notes did not say what time he stopped by. Anyway, I asked when they could get him to come back, and they said the soonest they would be able to send someone again was July 28th. Absolutely unacceptable, I said. The rep said she would talk to a supervisor and call me back.

While I waited, I went to check the mail, and bumped into the landlady. I complained about Comcast for a while, and then she reminded me that our apartment complex has a dedicated Comcast rep assigned to it, and that I should have called him for help. I gave him a call. He returned my call almost immediately, and told me that he would be able to get me taken care of on Monday. I told him it was better than nothing.

Shortly after talking with him, the phone agent called me back. She said that she spoke to a supervisor, and they would be able to get somebody out here today, but they wouldn't be able to guarantee a specific time. Fine. I asked them what the time range was. They told me it would be between now and six in the evening. I accepted, figuring that would still give me time to see at least one movie later. I waited until six. No sign of them. I called support again. They told me that I was mis-quoted, and that it could actually be as late as seven, but there would absolutely be somebody there by then. At seven, still no sign of them, so I called back again. This time I gave the agent an earful about the type of experience I have been having with them today. She said she would have her supervisor call the installation technician's supervisor, and she would call me back with the results.

Needless to say, nobody called back. At around nine, there was a knock at the door. Two Comcast technicians had finally arrived. They puttered around for about half an hour, realized that the new apartment wasn't properly wired yet, and had to drill a hole in our outdoor storage to get everything to connect. The did everything that needed to be done on this end, and then we discovered the best part. The customer service center never deprovisioned the old account and never provisioned the new one. This part of the process takes about thirty seconds, and is done over the phone. It should have been done ten days ago. Naturally, the people who can do this went home at six.

So, the bottom line is that I wasted an entire day, and nothing was accomplished. I still have no internet. They are telling me they should be able to finish up before I leave for work tomorrow, but I am NOT holding my breath. What I am doing is counting the days until FiOS spreads to our neighborhood and I can fire Comcast completely. My roommate has made it his mission to call them on Tuesday and raise as big a stink as he possibly can, to see if he can get any kind of compensation for ten days of frustration. If that doesn't work, we are canceling all services except for the internet, and that is only staying active until something better comes along.

Oh, and the best part? If I had just called our assigned rep on the first of the month, my internet would have been active on the second.

Whenever a franchise I like gets to more than three movies, I always want to re-watch the entire series just before seeing the new installment, but I never quite manage to get around to it. This month, my roommate is helping me achieve this goal with the Harry Potter series. I only own the first three, because that's how many I bought before realizing that they would probably come out with an awesome box set at some point, but with a PS3 on the horizon, I may consider saving my box set for BluRay. Anyway, with this in mind, we went hunting for Goblet of Fire and Order of the Phoenix at Best Buy and Target. Best Buy had GoF for ten bucks, but neither had the OotP. We may end up having to order the last one from Amazon, because nobody seems to stock it for some reason.

We watched Sorcerer's Stone tonight. I'd forgotten how good the early ones actually were. The third one was such an artistic leap forward, that I tend to forget how charming (if harmless) the first two were. The computer graphics are a little bit dated, but no more so than anything else from that year. Also, maybe my current knowledge is coloring my perception, but Richard Harris looks much more sickly than I remembered him being. In spite of the amazing hair and beard they gave him, he really does not look well, which makes me sad.

We tried a new (to me) burrito place for dinner tonight. It's a chain called Muchos Gracias that sailstosea is apparently familiar with, but I'd never heard of it. He was raving about their fish burritos, but they were sadly all out of fish, so we had to settle for shrimp burritos. They were pretty delicious, but I am told they are inferior to the fish.

For now, I need to unpack a box and then go to sleep. Probably in the living room, because I don't want to sleep through the Comcast guy the way I did with the Nielsen representative.

It's been quite a while since I worked a Thursday! One of my work friends had a court date today, so we swapped shifts. I worked for her today, and she is working for me on Saturday. I'm pretty excited about the prospect of having a Saturday off for the first time in many many many months. Anyway, today was a surprisingly rough day. This was tempered by the oddness of having a full hour lunch break. A lot of the office switched back to hour lunches a few months ago, but I stayed on half hour lunches because it meant half an hour more of time not at work per day. I had no idea what to do with myself with a full hour off.

I keep forgetting to bring my paper journal entries to work, so I haven't type up the past two entries yet. If tomorrow is anything like today, I won't get a chance to type them up even if I do remember to bring them! Anyway, I've hooked my computer back up and am typing up this entry in Notepad. If I had the energy, I'd type up the previous two as well, just for ease of posting when my internet comes back on Saturday.

Speaking of internet, I just got my Comcast bill. Apparently, my triple play deal ran out after a year, and now they want to charge me almost double what I was paying. I have no idea how they think they can get away with that, and I will definitely call them up and downgrade the heck out of my service. I don't really use the VOIP at all, and I barely use the cable. Really, all I need is the internet, my DVR box, and network television. I don't think they have a cable package that doesn't actually have cable, so I guess I will have to see what the minimum package I can get is. If I can't downgrade my package cheaper than the triple play, then I think it's time to call Verizon and see if all these FiOS ads I'm getting are telling me the truth.

Amusingly enough considering yesterday's musings, I think I woke up at exactly 12:34:54 7/8/9 today. As amusing as that is, it definitely was not a good thing considering the Nielsen guy was due here at ten. I figured his call or knock would wake me up, but neither did. If I had been awake enough to be coherent after finishing my journal, I would have gone to sleep in the living room to keep from missing him. Oh well. They were able to reschedule the appointment for later today, so no harm done.

Today's first order of business was the move-out inspection of our old unit. The process was surprisingly painless. The landlady didn't even bring any paperwork. The actual walkthrough took maybe two minutes, if that. Pretty much the only thing we got dinged on was the carpet, which had a few mud spots from last winter. Then we came down to the office and signed the forms. They still have to get a quote from the carper cleaners, but she basically told me outright that I would be getting at least $600 of my $750 deposit back, which means our rent in August is going to be around $250, possibly less. Good news indeed!

A bit later, we had the Nielsen tech in. He was super friendly and helpful, like all the Nielsen people we have dealt with. He let us know that the move kept us from continuing to serve as a Nielsen home, which was okay with us considering how tired we were of the massive bundle of electronics in the living room. Anyway, he not only removed all their equipment, he also repaired out damaged DVR and hooked up our whole entertainment center just the way it was. Pretty classy, if you ask me. Everything should be ready for the Comcast guy on Saturday.

Most of the day was devoted to Doctor Who, with a quick detour to Sansai for a much-needed sushi dinner. Now I need to get to bed in the hope of getting up early to go to work tomorrow.

Is it sad that I am considering going in to work on all my days off just so I can stay caught up on my internet chores? I think so! Well, I am considering going in tomorrow, but the ability to do internet chores is purely secondary to making serious overtime. How long I go in for is mainly going to depend on how long it takes to deal with this walkthrough and to talk to the Nielsen folks about repairing my DVR unit. Hopefully, I can be out of here by noon.

One of my coworkers pointing out something amusing today. Tomorrow, at just under thirty-five minutes past noon, the time and date will be 123456789. (12:34:56, 7/8/9) Seems like a good excuse to throw a party, if you ask me. I'm not sure what sort of celebration would be appropriate for this kind of milestone, though. Probably the kind of party that the Count from Sesame Street would host.

I read a pretty interesting interview with the creator of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus today. He had some odd things to say about his own creative process. The interview told him how many people use his games as their main argument in defense of games being classified as art. He seemed incredibly flattered by this information, but said he didn't set out to create art. His only real goal is to create games that are beautiful and entertaining. I don't know, that pretty much sounds like art to me.

In typical Portland fashion, the weather decided to be contrary, and we ending up having a July morning cold enough that I actually wore my jacket when I left the house. Of course, it didn't stay that way all day, but it was still cold enough for the jacket not to be uncomfortable when I left work at the end of my shift. No idea what the weather is supposed to be like tomorrow. Still, the variety is nice. It's possible the heat wave broke early, and it will be mild for the rest of the summer, but I doubt it. It should definitely be nice and cool by the time people start visiting me in August, though!

I finally reached somebody from the rental office today. After all that cleaning, frantic to get it all done in time for the expected inspection on Monday, it turns out that the earliest they can do it is Wednesday. On the one hand, I now feel dumb for stressing out so hard, and I almost wish we hadn't pushed ourselves so much. On the other hand, it's all done now, and it might not have been if we knew how much time we really had. Being done is good.

In an effort to prevent myself from doing what I did last time I moved (never unpacking all the boxes), I have enlisted militant aid from my roommate. His job is now to nag me at the end of each day until I show him an empty box that I have just unpacked. It doesn't matter how big or small the box is, as long as I do one per day. When I run out of boxes, I have to show him the empty closet. ♥ In retrospect, it might have been a good idea to tell him not to initiate the nagging until until my body has had a few days to recover.

Well, it wasn't easy, but we finished moving. Not too bad, considering we only had five hours' notice to begin with, and only one full day to devote to the task. The apartment wasn't confirmed as ready until 6pm on July 1st. We had the entire 2nd to work, and then only about four hours each on the 3rd and 4th. I actually talked work into letting me take a half day today, and that helped a lot. I finished the last of the vacuuming and scrubbing just in time to squeeze in a DVD of Doctor Who before bed. It's definitely a sign of how much you love a show when you are willing to take the time to hook up the DVD player after four days of moving just so you can watch it.

What's really sad is how excited I am never to have to climb those stairs again. Granted, it's only a big deal because of how sore I am. I'll be taking all stairs personally for a little while. It's weird. I've never once thought of climbing the stairs to my apartment as even a slightly daunting task, but when I get home and look at the stairs and realize they don't apply to me anymore, it pleases me. Stairs are like oxygen; I never notice them until they are gone. Sadly, I still have to climb them one more time, since I still have to do the final inspection with the landlady. They weren't in today because of the holiday weekend. I left a message asking if we could take care of it first thing in the morning, preferably before nine so it doesn't make me late for work. At this point, I will be ecstatic if I can get even half of my security deposit back.

Work was really boring today, as evidenced by the Manager On Duty letting me leave after four hours. Of course, I got a text message an hour later expressing regret at letting me leave. Apparently I am the glue that holds the closing shift together? Who knows. I refuse to feel guilty about it, considering how much overtime I have given the company. And on that note, and because I am so tired that I can't even read my own handwriting, I am going to bed. Yikes. I was able to type up yesterday's entry at work. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to do the same tomorrow.

Have you ever used a self-cleaning oven? Those things are freaking terrifying! I'd never seen one before, so I honestly had no idea what to expect. You have to slide a little leve over to lock the front, and then you press the "self-clean" button. After you do that, the oven UNLEASHES HELL for four and a half hours. As near as I can tell, it "self-cleans" by utterly vaporizing any particles unlucky enough to be trapped inside. Much like that Doctor Who episode on the mining ship when the sun beings possess the crew members; when they flip down the visors, that is very much like what happens inside my oven. It gets so hot that any water that even touches the top of the oven is instantly evaporated. As soon as I finish writing this, I'm going to go upstairs and check on it. Need to make sure plasma beings are not being birthed in my old kitchen.

Working on the Fourth of July was not nearly as awesome as it was last year. No barbecue, although the manager did at least order pizza for the office. Unfortunately, only Domino's was open. Unlike last year, I was stuck on a closing shift, which basically meant there was no chance of me getting to leave early. Not only that, but I think the manager sent a few too many people home early, because I was taking back to back calls for a lot of the day, and that is definitely unusual for any holiday. Fourth of July is usually even slower than Christmas for some reason.

In happier news, we pretty much slaughtered the remaining cleaning for tonight. The roomie scrubbed the kitchen and bathroom, and I worked on everything else. Emptied out the linen closet, finished picking up the pile of trash that accumulated during cleaning, and emptied a few shelves I missed yesterday. Tomorrow, all I have to do is transfer the contents of our outside storage area down to the new outside storage area. I won't do that in the dark due to spiders. I figure it will take maybe an hour if I wait for daylight. Then all I have to do is vacuum the living room, and drag the vacuum and the whiteboard down the stairs. We're shooting for having the landlady come by and do the walkthrough first thing Monday morning. I'm pretty excited. i think we got the place clean enough for me to get a pretty significant chunk of my deposit back. I hope so, anyway.

*sniff sniff* Goodbye, internets! I'll see you in a week! Well, not counting work.

So, today we had our first real close-up look at the mess that Nielsen makes of your living room electronics. It's terrifying. The amount of wires and cables probably takes up as much volume as every single piece of entertainment electronics in the living room. Circuit tumors zip-tied to the back of things, sinister tendrils snaking in and out of appliances, and more audio splitters than I have ever seen in my life. I'm not even going to start in on what they did to our poor Comcast DVR box. I have a sneaking suspicious I am paying the full deposit for that thing as soon as they see what was done to it. I feel like these guys should know better than to so blatantly void the warranty for something like that, but they must have to deal with Comcast constantly, so maybe they have worked something out.

It sucks to be so close to done, but too exhausted to carry even one more box. I think I've got about four more trips left to full clear my bedroom. Six if you count the computer and the desk. It would probably take me twenty minutes at my normal levels of strength versus exhaustion, but I think it would take at least two hours right now. I have opted for the sleep option. I'm pretty sure they are going to send me home early tomorrow, and sailstosea is pretty likely as well. Assuming I get enough rest tonight, it should be a quick hour of moving down the last of the stuff, followed by an exhausting four or five hours of cleaning, and then we will be DONE! Actually, looking around the apartment, it looks like we now have more loads of trash to clear out than actual possessions.

I was thinking about how I never really unfinished packing when I moved into this place, and I finally realized why. I am normally pretty good at unpacking. I mean, it can take me a couple months to completely put everything away, but I manage it. Well, in the place I lived before this apartment complex, I had a really tiny room and no real space outside that room. I never unpacked there because I had nowhere to put anything. In those six months, I got so used to doing without all those packed possessions that I started not to miss them, and then it became a non-existent priority to get them all unpacked. Anyway, my roommate has concocted a plan to help motivate me, which is that he will yell at me to finish off one box per day, every day, and he won't leave me alone until he sees the empty box in the living room. ♥

Well, we haven't finished moving yet, but I think we're doing pretty good for only five hours' notice. Moving your entire life only down a flight of stairs is an odd experience. The amount of time it takes is distributed very oddly. Putting things in boxes takes a little less time because you don't have to think as hard or pack as carefully. Also, there is much less transportation time. And the big difference is that you only need to have one box each! My roommate and I each bought a plastic tub with handles, and the routine is basically to pack a tub, lug it down the stairs, and then unpack it. So, basically, at the end of the move, our rooms will be in the exact same state as they were at the start of the move. I think I greatly prefer this technique to taking two days to pack everything in boxes, spend a whole day driving back and forth with the boxes, and then spending the next week or two unpacking. This way, we finishing moving and unpacking at the same time.

We finally got to build our Expedit entertainment center! I think I bought it over a month ago, but never built it because we didn't want to have to carry it down a flight of stairs. Today, we totally cheated. I stood under the balcony, and he slid each box over the rail, and I grabbed the end and slowly lowered it to the ground, and then we walked them right into the living room. We were able to move a surprising amount of stuff that way. All the chairs, couch cushions, our deck table, and a few other things. After finishing his room and helping me build the entertainment center, he had to go to band practice. I spent the time moving my own bedroom. All I have left is my computer and desk, one tub of miscellaneous junk, and a pile of boxes in the closet that I never really unpacked.

I am so freaking sore right now. It was moving my books and bookshelves that really knocked me out. I spent all afternoon guzzling Smart Water, and I eventually got so exhausted that I had to lie down in front of the fan every couple of trips. After the roommate got home, we moved 90% of the kitchen stuff by having me pack a tub, and him taking it down to put away while I packed the other tub. Very efficient. Our cabinets are pretty much the same except MUCH sturdier. And the one over the stove isn't as high due to the embedded microwave the new unit comes with, so for now the olive oil has to live on the counter, and we can buy a shorter bottle next time. Now I am just waiting for my first load of laundry to finish washing so I can put it in the dryer and go to bed.

So, yesterday our landlady called me while I was at work, and didn't leave a message, which is in itself pretty unusual. I didn't get home until after the rental office had closed, so I figured I would go down today and see what they wanted. On the way down to the office, I passed an actual English-speaking person working on our soon-to-be apartment, so I asked him how soon the place was going to be ready. He said "Just finishing cleaning up now. Hopefully we should be done by five, because we've got somebody moving in later today!" I suddenly got the feeling I knew what the landlady wanted to talk to us about.

Sure enough, she wanted us to fill out the paperwork so we could do our walk-through and start moving in all of our stuff. This is pretty exciting and all, but a little bit more notice would have been nice. Last we heard, the construction crew was far behind schedule, and they were going to have to renegotiate next month's rent, and all kinds of whatnot. So, yeah, it was a little bit of a surprise. Needless to say, I am did not go in to do the overtime I had volunteered for today, and it is very unlikely that I will do it tomorrow either. The new place has been fully documented, although I'm not sure where my camera is at the moment, so pictures will have to wait a bit. We've already started moving things. I'm not as far along as I'd like to be, partially due to it being really hot today, and mostly due to my back being very sore from moving the mattresses.

The new place is the same layout as the old one, with a couple of differences. All the gas fixtures have been replaced with electric. The water heater is now tucked away in my ridiculously long closet. The closet where the water heater was has been expanded to contain a washer and dryer, at the expense of a little bit of the bathroom. We still have a double sink, and the bathtub is significantly larger. They screwed up and put the toilet paper holder a little too close to the toilet, and I'll probably see if I can get that fixed, but other than that, the place is pretty freaking sweet. It comes with its own microwave, so ours is going into storage. Oh, and the closets are much more interesting. Half of them is the standard shelf with bar just below it, but the other half is split into two tiers, each with its own bar. Oh, and each room now has its own individual heat control. And the bathroom has a humidity detector that automatically turns on the fan if the air gets too moist. (To prevent mildew!)

Pretty much the only drawback to this abrupt move is that we weren't able to give ComCast enough notice, so we aren't going to have internet for almost ten days. That's going to be rough. I'll either type up all my entries in notepad and just paste them on the 11th, or I will see if I can take them into work on a thumb drive and post them from there.

Professor Layton is pretty much the greatest public transportation game ever. It comes in such bite-sized chunks that it's really easy to enjoy on the run. Solve two puzzles while waiting for the bus. Solve another while en route to Sunset Transit center. Solve four to ten more on the MAX train to work. Rinse and repeat for the ride home. Now, if I could only get the hang of not playing it at any time other than going to and from work, I'd be in good shape. It's a bad game to play before bed, because of course it causes you to fall into the perpetual "Just one more puzzle!" trap. ♥

Definitely a "dumber than advertised" day at work. Some days, you deal almost exclusively with incredibly dense people. It happens. Today was one of those days. My coworkers and I added quite a few pages to our Museum of Crimes Against SiteBuilder. Pretty much nothing else worth reporting from work today, except for lunch. We had that ultra corn slop that was featured at the YEF barbecue last week, and it was just as delicious as before. I need to learn how to make that stuff. It can't be very difficult. I'll just ask the cooks when I go in tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow is normally my day off, but I have opted to work some overtime, seeing as how it's a holiday week, which means my hours are already getting a boost. ♥

I got a call from my landlady while I was at work today, but she didn't leave a message. That's a little annoying, considering the future of our housing situation is a little up in the air right now. I'm going to talk to them tomorrow when I go down to pay rent. The apartment is actually progressing very quickly at the moment, but there is no way it's going to be ready by the end of this week, which means further calculations are needed as far as next month's rent goes, and whatever pro-rate may or may not happen. Anyway, I am going to try and pass out so that hopefully I can get up early enough to take care of rent and still go in for a full eight hours of overtime.

Today was kind of a rough day, and my roommate has had a stressful couple of weeks, so I decided to do something that would cheer us both up. I got him his birthday present several weeks early. (A month and a half early, if you want to quibble.) I snuck over to CostCo after work and bought him a Nintendo DSi. He made a really cute noise, and then was so startled that he dropped the bag it was in. It was super adorable. Giving people things out of the blue always cheers me up, due to me being part of silverkun's League of Evil Santas. He immediately put it on to charge, and then spent the evening fiddling with it, all stress completely forgotten. Mission accomplished!

I wasn't too interested in getting a DSi of my own, but watching him play with his makes me want one. I mean, it has a camera built in! It has graphics software. It has facial recognition software! We took a picture of the two of us together, and the game calculated the odds of us being related as 13%. C'mon! That's amazing! Anyway, I'll probably wait to get one until they come in some more interesting colors than black or baby blue. I have never actually purchased a hand-held video game system for myself before. I've just never felt the need. The last one I owned was a Neo Geo Pocket that my brother gave to me one Christmas. I think I used it for about a week and got tired of it. I became tempted by the original DS the first time I saw an ad for Professor Layton and the Curious Village, but I didn't quite give in. Well, now that he has a DSi, sailstosea has given me unlimited use of his old DS. Three guesses what game I'm playing.

Professor Layton feels like the kind of game Hayao Miyazaki would make if he were European. It takes place in the village of... well, I can't remember the name of it, so I'm going to call it the village of OCD. Every single freaking person in this village is obsessed with puzzles. I mean everybody, from the mayor to the shopkeepers to the children playing in the alley. Honestly, it's like visiting a village where everybody has been possessed by my sixth grade teacher. But in a good way. The puzzles come in a huge variety, and almost all of them are the kinds of things my teacher would give out as fun extra credit at the end of the week. Some of them I actually remember from his class, like the one where you have three wolves and three chicks, and you have to get them all across a river on a raft that only holds two animals, and there can never be more wolves than chicks on either island even for a second, and the raft can't move if it's empty. There's also the one where you have an empty three, an empty five, and a full eight gallon container, and you have to measure exactly four gallons. Oh, and the one where you have eight pieces of gold and one fake, and you have to use a scale to isolate the lighter weight fake in only two steps. It's a really fun game, and it makes my brain feel good to be exercised in a way I haven't enjoyed in quite a while. ♥