oh my god...

... i'm online! wireless! at my house! yipee!

strange though, i got all the stuff today (modem, etc.), but the DSL wasn't supposed to be activated till tomorrow. i installed everything anyway, figuring it would tell me that i can't connect yet. but no! i'm connected!

so close, yet so far away

i was this close (picture my thumb and index finger very close together) to winning AFI tickets tonight. caller #3. they wanted caller #5. ARG! unfortunately i can't buy them, otherwise i would not be in this predicament. this will be an excellent start to an upcoming excellent coachella weekend.

i only have so much time left in my life before the young kids will look at me and think "dude, look at the old chick going to a punk show."

i'm behind on concert reviews, and restaurant reviews (which i promised kevin). hopefully i'll get these in before leaving for coachella.

on a completely unrelated topic, i rode my mountain bike for the first time today! it was great. i also managed to run into a 14 year old-ish kid on his mountain bike (too detailed to explain how this happened, but really, i'm not *that* retarded on a bike), causing a tangle and a tumble. i cut my finger, have a welt on my thigh (think like a welt from getting hit with a paintball), and already chipped paint off my bike! i can't believe i did that...

so FRIGGIN' mad

i just designed and implemented a great experiment. i used up the majority of my DNase enzyme, and i thought "god, i hope this turns out well, since that's almost the last of my DNase". stupid me, i think i jinxed myself.

4 hours later, i'm ready to read my plate on our snazzy plate reader which analyzes the data for you INSTANTANEOUSLY, which is a huge advantage over our old plate reader. i program the data software in 5 minutes - that's all the time i have to spend to set up the "automatic analysis". i read the plate. the numbers are WACKY. i think "WTF, i ran identical samples yesterday, and i didn't get counts like these". i check the parameters. all is well. i reread the plate. the screen then reads:

FATAL ERROR #405. Contact Technical Support

looking in the manual, #405 means "error caused by motor motion failure." i reboot the instrument 3 times. no luck.

so i run to the old instrument to read my plate before my samples go bad. it reads, but it's ancient, so i have to save my data to a disk, transfer the raw numbers into excel, open up GraphPad (a piece of shit statistical program), and manually copy the data into the program so i can extrapolate the values i need. this all takes about 1.5 - 3 hours. as i am copying the data using the computer that is operating the ancient plate reader, i get microshit's dreaded blue screen of death. i can't save my data to the disk, the computer isn't networked, and does not have excel or GraphPad on it for analysis. ergo, NO DATA TODAY.

to vent my anger, i called molecular devices and left a nasty message as to why i spent $70,000 on an instrument that has required service and repairs 4 TIMES since june 2005. we got a lemon, and i want a new instrument.

fuckin' waaaaah.

i'm so over this

someone please shoot me.

so many things to share...

... ok, i've got a lot of stupid things i want to talk about. i'm sure i could bore you with long explanations about each topic, but instead i'll just list them out and maybe i'll elaborate on them later.

1. i got estimates on gloria. the damage is going to be $2500 - $3000. what i expected, but disheartening nonetheless. most of the cost will be to fix the front frame of my car, which actually shifted about a quarter of an inch during the accident. this is why my hood looks crooked - but the hood is actually fine, it's the frame that's crooked. all i have to say is "major FOOPY!".

2. i've been calling canada a lot. and canada has been calling me a lot. i'm terrified to see my next phone bill. i'm going to be like one of those people on the cell phone commercials who open their phone bill, scream bloody murder, then faint. yeah, that'll be me.

3. why do drunk ex-boyfriends make their friends call me at midnight on a friday night? this is silly.

4. i bought a mountain bike yesterday!!!! it is SO PRETTY, but won't be for long because i plan to take her to quicksilver the next sunny weekend (if that will ever happen this century) and get her dirty. a name is forthcoming. i figured, what's another $450 when i'll be spending $3000 already to pay for gloria. a BIG THANKS to carol, who spent the whole day with me yesterday bike shopping, and dan, who put my bike together right away so i could take it home the same day. thanks for taking care of me you guys!

ok, that's all! probably a little longer than i originally planned, but i hope i didn't bore you. :)

deserves it's own entry

i can't believe i forgot to blog about this 2 weeks ago. read carefully:

we
got
a
COUCH!

please, control your shock, dear readers! i think i heard you gasping from 30 miles away!

andrea and i can thank lilly and alex for this new part of our home - they wanted to get rid of it and happily delivered it to us. thank you!

vegas, baby!

I'M GOING TO VEGAS!!!

finally, i will get my fix!

this is the official 2 month countdown - woo hoo!

boring feelings and news

1. the rain needs to fucking go away. NOW!

2. i have been successfully sorting all the mail in my inbox at work since the beginning of the year. i no longer have 500+ emails in my inbox. now i'm down to less than 50 emails.

3. i miraculously have no more neck or back pain after the accident! i really can hardly believe it. unfortunately, andrea isn't so lucky. most of the impact was on the passenger side of the car. sorry, andrea!! feel better!

4. i've been at work since 7:30 am, and i want to leave now. but it's 5:45 pm, and traffic is at it's peak. what to do, what to do.

that's all.

glad to be here typing this

ok, i don't know what the deal is: march, it's a heart attack and april, it's a car accident. WTF?

well, today i was in the worst car accident i've ever been in. and considering the fact that my sister and i are both OK and that my car (gloria) isn't nearly as damaged as i thought she would be, we are really lucky. i mean REALLY lucky. thinking about how much worse it could have been, what if this and what if that, really makes me nauseous.

while i was driving in the middle lane of highway 17 in campbell, a white ford focus and a white mustang were passing me in the right lane at ~90 MPH (i guessed their speed based on the fact that i was going about 75 MPH). when the right lane slowed down, these two cars obviously had to slow down too. but the idiot in the mustang decided to try and move into my lane without looking. andrea screamed b/c this mustang was about to hit us on the right, and my immediate (and i can't help but think "stupid") instinct was to swerve out of the way. this is a bad thing to do when you are moving at 75 MPH.

so i started losing control. gloria was skidding and fishtailing between the middle lane and the left lane. i thought i was starting to gain control of the car until i spun, hitting the center divide 3 times. my dad figured that based on where my car was hit, i did two 270 degree spins. the final hit stopped my car, resulting in our final resting place in the large shoulder of the center divide, with my car facing oncoming traffic.

andrea was screaming, crying, shaking. i, on the other hand, was completely deadpan. no reaction, initially, which is really uncharacteristic of me in a situation like that. once we realized that we were both OK, we called the police and my dad. at this point, mr. mustang was long gone.

the highway patrol didn't seem to think it was a big deal. it was a single vehicle collision, no one hit us and we hit no one. they said a report would be pretty much pointless, and that the only issue was going to be between me and my insurance company. i guess i can see their point. but they didn't even bother to ask if i was drinking or on drugs (i obviously wasn't), what my name was, if i had proof of insurance or registration. nothing. i thought it was strange that they didn't even see it fit to ask.

when i think about it now, i guess the way it happened, since it happened, was in the best possible scenario. i'm thankful that:

1. we weren't hurt at all. just sore necks and backs at the moment.
2. no one else was involved. car accidents bring out the worst in people, from my experience.
3. it wasn't raining yet. the rain started about 30 minutes later.
4. that the accident didn't happen another 500 feet up the freeway, where there is no left center divide. if the accident happened there, my car probably would have ended up in the middle of the freeway as opposed to the center divide. and who KNOWS what would have happened then.
5. the damage to gloria is not as bad as the accident felt. it looks like only about $3000 worth of damage. once we stopped spinning, i thought my car was toast, but it only looks like the front and back bumpers will need to be replaced, and my hood realigned... ok, maybe $4000.

in spite of all that, i can't help but be bummed that i'm going to have to kiss my nice tax return goodbye. and the new laptop that i was planning on buying. i know, i know, it's not important. i know it's not. i just can't help thinking about it. i'm alive! andrea's alive! our lives are invaluable! that's important.