In preparation for Anime Expo, Julia has watched:

• Bishoujou Senshi Sailormoon R: The Movie
• Aa! Megamisama (OAV)

She has yet to watch:

• Bannou Bunka Neko Musume
• Gunsmith Cats
• Mononoke Hime
• Otaku no Video

I think we need to root her on!

LJ Archive | 3 Comments »

If you love Internet Radio, you need to read this right now. It’s in danger, and needs your help.

Top Commenters on ’s LiveJournal
(Self comments excluded from rankings)

1		240
2		81
3		75
4		65
5		56
6		44
7		41
8		40
9		37
10		35

_______________
Report generated 6/25/2007 6:39:15 PM by ’s LJ Comment Stats Wizard 1.7

1		240
2		81
3		75
4		65
5		56
6		44
7		41
8		40
9		37
10		35

11		34
12		28
13		28
14		27
15		24
16		24
17		23
18		23
19		22
20		22
21		22
22		22
23		20
24		19
25		18
26	Anonymous	16
27		16
28		15
29		14
30		12
31		11
32		11
33		11
34		10
35		8
36		7
37		7
38		7
39		6
40		6
41		6
42		6
43		6
44		5
45		5
46		5
47		4
48		4
49		4
50		4
51		4
52		4
53		4
54		4
55		3
56		3
57		3
58		3
59		3
60		3
61		3
62		3
63		3
64		3
65		2
66		2
67		2
68		2
69		2
70		2
71		2
72		2
73		2
74		2
75		2
76		2
77		2
78		1
79		1
80		1
81		1
82		1
83		1
84		1
85		1
86		1
87		1
88		1
89		1
90		1
91		1
92		1
93		1
94		1
95		1
96		1
97		1
98		1
99		1
100		1

Total Commenters: 105 (5 not shown)
Total Comments: 2001
Report generated 6/25/2007 6:39:15 PM by ’s LJ Comment Stats Wizard 1.7

LJ Archive | 3 Comments »

1. My username is _____ because ____.
2. My journal is titled ____ because ____.
3. My subtitle is ____ because ____.
4. My friends page is called ____ because ____.
5. My default userpic is ____ because ____.

Um… hmm…

I chose because it’s actually my username for a couple of hosts I run, and it was available on the list of recently purged usernames.

My journal is titled “The Oval Office” because I am using a West Wing theme.

My subtitle is “The West Wing” because duh.

My friends page is called “Press Briefing Room” in keeping with the motif.

And finally, my default userpic is President Bartlet with the words ‘What’s Next?’ because that’s like the best phrase to motivate a conversation to move to the next topic.  It reminds me that life isn’t and shouldn’t be all about dwelling on stuff for too long and in order to keep going, you gotta keep moving.

LJ Archive | No Comments »

I miss El Hazard.

Edit: Dude, Tap! Kyojin no Hoshi was re-released to DVD like 6 years ago! OMFGWTFBBQ!

LJ Archive | 2 Comments »

Oh, holy crap… I can’t believe it’s June 19th already. And I squandered the opportunity to needle about his turning 31 three weeks ahead of me. Let’s get to the Year in Review:

One Year Ago Today: Turning 30 sucked ass. Mostly because hardly anyone remembered that I was turning thirty in the first place. My friends’ list (with few notable exceptions) sucks it. I started my new job with Shopping.com. Julia and I were one week away from sleeping on the field at (then) SBC Park.

On the Job Front: I worked with Shopping.com for the better part of year thirty, from June (on my birthday, no less) until the following March. I also started handling ’s convention appearances for him, since things were getting a bit hairy for him in keeping track of all that, so I guess that’s another job I started doing during the course of the year. After I got shown the door over at Shopping.com, the field literally opened up as a lot of people wanted me to go work for them. I ended up choosing Yahoo, because that would add them (along with eBay and Microsoft) to what is starting to become a what’s what of Silicon Valley, also known as my resume. I started Yahoo in late March and have been with them since. I’m hoping to get converted to regular/fulltime employment no later than August 1, 2007.

What happened?: I made a mistake and I got myself fired. I agreed with the decision because there are times when you genuinely feel like you got screwed and there are times when you know you fucked up. This was one of the latter, and I absolutely hate it when others point fingers, it would be hypocritical of me to not try to exhibit the qualities I value in others. So, I stood up, accepted responsibility for my fuck-up, and then handed over my badge and walked out the front door… and dreaded the response from Julia when I got home like you wouldn’t fucking believe.

Home Front: By June, Julia and I moved back in to my apartment. Todd and Jody moved to a one-bedroom hole downstairs. Mel had already moved out to San Carlos to room with her other friends. So, we had the place to ourselves and still do. It was what he had always wanted to do and for me, I thought it was weird just not having five people living there anymore. But you get used to a lot of things that happen everyday in your life, even if those changes are pretty drastic to begin with. Like getting married. Or having this really hawt chick move in and share a bed with you. You get used to it. Maybe sometimes you take it for granted, but I think that’s part of the relationship.

Marriage: Having been through this maze before, imagine my surprise when I realized that someone done gone and changed the damned thing up while I was out of it back in 2000. Although some of us predicate our understanding of things based on previous experience, I think the one thing we always forget so quickly is that no two people are alike. And while I know it intellectually, I think instinctively there are a lot of things about Julia that throw me for a loop when considering what’s happened in the past. Sometimes, I make poor decisions because I’ve been trying to teach myself to sort of rebehave in a marriage, according to the present circumstances. When you survive a failed marriage and enter into a new one, your radar goes into hyperactive mode; looking for any sign of the relationship breaking down. Or, you might decide to become completely indifferent to the whole idea as a means of protecting yourself from the type of pain you’ve survived in the past. I know that my previous relationships were doomed from the start because I failed to allow my girlfriends the opportunity to get intimate with me. I always kept them at arm’s length with the thin facade of shallow love, all the while knowing that it wasn’t going to last. For those of you who’ve met my wife, I think you guys know that she doesn’t stand for that kind of bullshit. But the difference between her and the those who came before her is the simple fact that she’s the third woman in my life who actually got past the deflector shields and tried to get to know me for me. If you’re wondering who the other two are, that’s what we call a himitsu. And no, Stephanie wasn’t one of them. When all is said and done, we have our ups and downs, but I will say that still am very much in love with Julia.

Creative: With Knight Commander finished and Knightfall halfway done, I felt like I had gotten a lot accomplished with my writing. However, back in May of 2006, I found this old Untitled sitting in my directory that I had forgotten about. When I opened it up, I had started this scene with a character I had a partial sketch for and decided to run with it. What I ended up with was (much to Abbie’s dismay) a ten-part series of shorts called Ex Populus. Of course, I’m never satisfied with ten, so I extended it to 18 later on. Abbie’s not happy with me over this, of course. But then, I think we all know that my attention span with creative things is never focused long enough unless she makes me fly out to her place and then stands over with with a whip, making sure I think about Knight Commander and ONLY Knight Commander. Needless to say, Knight Commander is being worked on right now, and hopefully I’ll send it out for its rounds of beta reading before submitting to an agent. I really want to finish Ex Populus, though. I’m having way too much fun with that series!

Bottom Line: Year thirty was good. I didn’t die. I wonder what happens this year?

LJ Archive | 11 Comments »

I know, it’s been ages since I’ve posted. Rest assured, I’ve been reading LJ when I get a chance to, but if you ask around, you’ll know I’ve been pretty much tied up with work. So, for those of you who dare, feel free to click on the cut link below.

Where to begin? I started my job with Yahoo back in the last week of March and I was writing that things were going pretty well. They’re still going well for the most part, but one of the most overwhelming things about the job is that it’s incredibly challenging at times. Yahoo’s NOC is more like a NOC on steroids, where we don’t just support one property (or part of the site), but we support 30. So things like YMail, Messenger, Mobile, etc… all of those have different procedures you have to follow (ie: runbook) and sometimes each one wants you to perform the same task in a different manner. It’s somewhat stupid… but let’s say Mail, Messenger, Mobile, and Mingle (Yahoo 360) all run sshd. If sshd ever goes down, they’ll all want you to restart it, of course, but each one is going to want you to restart it using a different command. So, it’s not as easy as one might think, because it’s not as autonomous as other NOCs I’ve worked with, because of the simple fact that each property feels like they have to hand down procedure that’s specific to them. It’s like each property is striving for individuality, even if perhaps you know better about how restart procs… it doesn’t matter to them. So, it makes learning that much harder, but the best part of that is that the runbooks are pretty well documented, so even if I forget, I can always reference it. I guess, though, after a while, you just know it because you’ve done it so many times before.

The most recent problem I’ve been having is my work schedule. I was originally hired for grave shift, but I worked days for three weeks before moving to the swing shift, and then I was working there for another two before I got moved to grave shift (the first time). I sat on grave, for three weeks before my boss moved me back to a half-swing/half-grave shift. Needless to say, it’s been throwing my sleep cycle for a loop, and making plans outside of work suffers because of the inconsistancies with the shift schedule. A lot of things have suffered because of it; I haven’t been writing at all, I haven’t been able to continue working on my radio show with Jesse and Shon, I haven’t had a lot of time to spend with my wife during the day, especially when she’s at school, so there’ve been days where I didn’t see her until just before leaving for my shift sometimes. I’m hoping that once I get to a shift where I know it’s going to be stable, I’ll be able to resume my hobbies… unfortunately for me and others, that’s not going to be until late July or early August at this point.

This also means that I can’t go to AX. For the second year in a row. I’ve never missed two years in a row… EVER. I might have to go to another convention to make up for it, but this sucks so hard you have no idea. AX is my favorite con of the year.

Anyway, my life’s pretty much been about training for this job and working as hard as I can so I can get converted to full-time employment and have medical insurance. Which I’m looking forward to having again.

In the meantime, I’m turning 31 in three days, thereby closing the book on the first thirty years of my life. I’ll post some New Year’s resolutions, hopefully.

LJ Archive | 2 Comments »