Sidious, Snoke and Salacious B Crumb’s Sarcastic and Sassy Situation Saloon (Fanfic Social Thread)

I love West Wing references. I got my roommate a Cartographers for Social Equality mug for her birthday.

 

Successful week starting the job hunt. Submitted about a dozen applications on Wednesday and yesterday, then put on the torture suit and attended an employer open house today. At the open house, handed in another ten resumes, some to companies I already applied to, and some of those wrote my application information on the resume so they could pull the application out of the system. Also, one of the companies I applied to on Wednesday emailed me this morning, and I now have a phone interview with them Monday morning so yay for that.

Now to take care of some car maintenance with an oil change this afternoon and then an evening at the lake at the local metro park for sunset kayaking with campus recreation.

 

Hahaha. That was one of the pins I had to get. I ended up only buying 4... but 3 of them were West Wing references, along with the NASA logo that said "Gay Space Communist" that just cracked me up. There was also a "Still Hate Thatcher" pin I was REALLY tempted to get. Maybe I'll eventually buy more and switch them occasionally.

Yay! Good luck.


I woke up this morning to a freezing cold condo, two cats under the blankets with me and a slight headache. I gave in and turned on the heat (IT'S STILL SUMMER TECHNICALLY! I hate that I've become such a baby when it comes to the cold - I have to wash my sheets this weekend and I'm considering just slapping on my flannel sheets). But we are under an extreme wind warning for later this afternoon and evening so maybe I'm not being a baby and it's ACTUALLY cold.

 

Cold is a very subjective thing. I’ve been very hot due to, you know, living in a desert. But last night, I got sick to my stomach and it gave me chills so I burrowed under blankets that I had warmed in the dryer.

 

An hour and a half on the lake in kayaks was fun. Most of the kayaks that campus recreation brought on the trailer were recreational kayaks, but I selected a small sporty hybrid kayak, a cross between a rec kayak and a whitewater kayak. It moved really quickly in the water and was way more maneuverable than a rec kayak. It took me about half an hour to adjust my paddling style to it but once I did, it was a blast. I got quite wet just from the splashing, but I dressed to get wet, so I'm okay with that.

I think this settles the matter: I want my own kayak. I have to wait until I graduate and until I can get a new car capable of transporting one (the little compact car I have now ain't gonna do it), but there is definitely a kayak purchase in my future.

 

I love kayaking and I am so fortunate I get to do it with work, because owning one just isn't feasible for me right now - storage woes of living in a condo, never mind transporting it.

My car is fixed, unfortunately, the auto-body shop called me less than a half-hour before they closed and there was no way I was getting down there in time, so I cant get my car till Monday (but at least I'm not wondering about it). The auto-body shop is right by where I need to drop my ballot off at anyways... and there's a craft store nearby, so I might treat myself come Monday,

I am currently watching Come From Away, which I've wanted to see for a while and the recently released on Apple+. It's a musical about the town of Gander, the town in Newfoundland where a lot of the planes were diverted on 9/11. I have relatives in Gander and my mom was born in the next village over (where they sent a lot of passengers).

 

I just watched that last weekend. I didn’t anticipate having trouble breathing because it triggered such strong memories of that day. But then it got into the rest of the story and I kept giggling and crying.

 

I ended up finishing Come From Away (very good! It made me miss so many of my extended relatives), figured I'd make the most of my Apple+ trial, watched CODA (new Marlee Matlin film - DEFINITELY RECCOMEND!), Ted Lasso (a few people recommended it to me and its never something I would have watched but the writing is so good, it just sucked me in), and now I am watching The Morning Show (the casting is just so good). I don't want another streaming service (my family shares all our accounts so I'm currently only paying for Disney+, but I recently decided to try Crave with the HBO add on - the only way to get HBO in Canada) but everything I've watched so far has been so good. Though maybe spending a bit more on streaming services this fall/winter isn't the worst idea.

Ugh, so I have a few errands to run today. Thankfully I am getting my car back... unfortunately my sister can't give me a ride to the autobody shop till after 4. So I either have to call a cab or deal with rush hour. Can't believe I am choosing the rush hour option.

 

Thanks for the info on CODA. I love Marlee Matlin, but had no reviews. I really liked The Morning Show as well.

My friend who works in clinical trials just confirmed that one vaccine in lower doses will be available for 5-11-year-olds. This is the same friend whose 12-year-old got the vaccine for his birthday and she’s been very anxious about his little brother. It’s a relief to me as the aunt of many more young children than nephews over the age of 12. When 6 people between 1 and 11 in my family got exposed by their dad, I was very stressed about whether I would lose any one of them before vaccines were available. Luckily, none of them caught it because he was quarantined in the basement and masked for a week after finishing isolation. I have a friend who was the only one in her family not to get it and one of her children was hit hard. I have another who will be on oxygen for weeks once she’s out of the hospital tomorrow and her dad’s being intubated. She and her parents are breakthrough cases.

Someday, I hope to not be so afraid of who will not bounce back from this.

 

I'm so glad to hear Come From Away was good. I'm still holding out hope to see it live before watching the recording, it was on my list of shows I wanted to see for quite awhile.

I feel this! It's so hard living in that fear all the time.

My company wants one person in my job description from each team to go to a class in Texas next month. Normally I'd be all about it, but I really don't feel comfortable flying to a hot spot, being around a bunch of people from other hot spots and I'm pretty sure there really aren't any masking rules in TX. Everyone from my company will be vaccinated, they made it a condition of employment awhile ago, but other people... who knows. I'm planning on asking my doctor what she thinks this week.

 

It feels great when you get a lot of work done

 

It would be sooooo amazing live, just because I've been to Newfie parties! But since I have no hope of seeing it live, I'm fine with recordings.

It does! Nice!


I VOTED!!!!

Also got my car back (yay). My sister and I got to the autobody shop like 5 mins before they closed. Driving downtown during rush hour was just as stressful as I remember it. Google maps gave me some really bad directions to the place where I had to drop my ballot off at and pretty sure I made an illegal turn. But the elections office was right beside the craft store and the pet store so I was able to pop into both places. I've decided to try loom knitting!

But I think I'm going to make a drink with dinner as election results trickle in (advantages of being on the West coast). Though they are - understandably - predicting we wont know the final results until tomorrow at least. Prepare for some stressed out Canadians.

 

I'm pretty sure the last American election 10 months ago drove some people into alcoholism with not knowing the outcome until four days later (and then not knowing the Senate control until two months later). You have a much better functioning political system than the convoluted and broken American system, so I'm sure you'll survive.

 

I'm pretty sure the alcoholism was International. In fact, I know it was.

But yes, our system is far from perfect, but we SHOULD have a fair idea as to who will win tonight (and it likely wont be much of a shock - Liberals called this snap election for a reason - they know they have a darn good shot at re-election), so I DOUBT this will be a repeat of November... but the rum is certainly helping as the results come in (but the mail-in ballots arent counted till tomorrow)

 

Glad the Canadian election seems to be over. Probably the most useless election ever, but I am glad I got to vote.

 

I still haven’t drunk stuff, but the election made me stay up until the certification was done and then start crying with relief when no one murdered Congress.

 

Yup. How many millions were spent and pretty much nothing changed (not that anything was predicted to shift)?

For those unaware, two of the major Canadian news organizations have already called it for a minority Liberal government. According to the latest results, all major parties are -1 seat (edit: nope, libs and cons now are +/- 0)... except for NDP which are projected to be up 3... but even with mail-in ballots, very little will change.

I mean, I hesitate to call any election useless... but this one was, yeah, probably one of the most useless.

For West Wing fans, I wish I could gif the last 30 seconds of Midterms because that's Canada right now: "After four months and 400 million dollars, everything stayed the same." (however, it was thankfully 4 weeks).

 

Josh: What do you say about a government that goes out of its way to protect even citizens that try to destroy it?
Toby: God bless America.

That’s a great episode.

 

It’s projected to cost the Canadian government 600 million dollars just to do nothing. Plus who knows how many people will get Covid because they waited in line at a polling station. Luckily Canada is one of the highest vaxxed countries in the world. So it’s probably not many, but I doubt it will be zero either.

 

Yeah, while I am generally grateful the Parliamentary system allows for snap elections when needed... this one was nothing but an annoying attempt at a majority government. It's not shocking that it failed and will probably come back to haunt the Liberals.


Anyways. I subscribed to Crave/HBO so I could finally watch Handmaiden's Tale and Game of Thrones (I just want something with plenty of seasons to listen to while I learn to knit... something simple enough to not have my eyes on constantly, but interesting enough to keep my attention) but now I just want to rewatch The West Wing.

 

I’m done rewatching west wing and now am rewatching Game of Thrones.

 

I've begun Handmaiden's Tale. I believe I tried watching it years ago and I think I know why I stopped. Amazing story that has really sucked me in... but horribly too close to plausible with what is going on in the news. I can only take so much depressing stuff in my escapism media. I really want to watch it... but it might be one of those where I watch a few episodes, then take a break for a few days (or weeks and then forget what was going on).

I am one of the few people who didn't watch Game of Thrones as it was airing (a combination of not having easy access to it via streaming, being too busy to care, and just having more accessible content to watch). I always said I'd binge it after it was all over... and then everyone (very vocally) hated the ending so I didn't exactly jump on it. But it sounds like some solid escapism to give my brain something new and fun.

 

So I spent $1,800 on a new laptop today. Mind you, I don't actually have it yet, because it was out of stock at Best Buy and they had to order it to be shipped to me, so it will arrive by next Thursday. But I got $2,000 in COVID relief funds for being a broke college student (well, broke based on my 2019 tax return, which was before my internships and massive scholarships) a couple of weeks ago and now it's basically gone.

Why $1,800? Because I have very tough-to-meet specifications for my laptops, and it's getting increasingly difficult to find one that fits. Specifications like "I need to be able to access Home, End, PgUp, PgDn, the function keys, arrow keys, and numpad numbers all at the same time with one touch and without having to constantly perform mode/lock switches or use modifier keys like Fn". You know, things that are trivial on desktops these days (you can buy $20 keyboards for a desktop that fit that requirement) but are becoming nearly impossible to find on laptop keyboards these days because manufacturers have decided to get creative with moving keys around and most now require modifier keys to access some or all of Home/End/PgUp/PgDn because those functions are considered non-essential or rarely used (despite the fact that I rely heavily on those four keys). Add in minimum technical specs (because I do play a few casual games and I do have a lot of files) and I had to go with a super-high-end gaming laptop to get what I wanted.

Why now? Partially because the money is there (the COVID relief funds that I'm not otherwise using for anything) and I wanted an upgrade with Windows 11 around the corner, but mainly because my current main laptop is quite literally coming apart at the seams. Seriously, there are at least three seams, on and around the screen and the hinge, that are pulling apart every time I open the laptop. I initially tried to fix the first seam that popped several months ago with Gorilla Tape, but that lasted only about a month before I had to retape it. Subsequent retapes have lasted shorter and shorter amounts of time, now down to less than a week, and additional seams have popped as well, the latest being the joint between the screen bezel and the screen itself (I can see between the two down to the internal guts under the screen, and I know dust is getting down in there). I closely examined the broken seams this morning and determined that the laptop probably has less than two months to live and is not likely to survive my last semester, so I bought a new one.

 

I totally sympathize with getting an expensive laptop but at least having it fit your needs. I got a very good discount laptop that's absolutely wonderful....wait for the catch though....It has a "French" aka bilingual keyboard which basically means the left shift key is tiny, the enter key is tall and narrow, and it has weird accented keys.

I cannot type properly without making errors and it overall ticks me off on a daily basis. However, now I kind of got used to it so I can't get used to a normal keyboard. Ugh, thanks a lot Quebec! Freakin' Quebecer French lizard people with their infuriating French keyboards (no offense to any French lizard people who use French keyboards, I'm just telling you to keep your French keyboards away from the rest of Canada).

/rant

 

Congrats on the new laptop JC! Back in my early undergrad I had a HP with the full keyboard with all the keys. The thing was a beast. I kinda miss it... but not hauling it around.

I understand the struggle. I had a bilingual laptop that would randomly switch on me and give me the è instead of a question mark, and there were other weird things when I tried to type quotation marks. I ended up going into the keyboard settings and deleting all other languages other than US English. Sorry, not sorry Quebec!

My laptop is on its dying breaths. For awhile neither the A or the I keys were working. Seems to be behaving today. But I was at the office on Tuesday and it would not charge with the charger I have there. It would show it was plugged in but not charging... and then it got really slow. I tried to restart it but it wouldn't turn back on. It worked after I brought it home. This laptop isn't that old (4 years) and it was a really expensive grad gift. So part of me wants to use it until it DIES because Macs can keep going and going... the other part of me knows its going to die at the most inconvenient time.