We’ve been threatened by the possibility of snow since Friday afternoon, but it didn’t start in earnest until sometime this morning.

I woke up around 11 a.m., and the flakes were falling in such a way that I could actually see them through the window, even before I put on my glasses. For a split second — still halfway asleep — I wondered if someone was standing on the edge of my roof and shaking snow down in front of my window, the way they have to do it for movie, TV or stage productions! Then I woke up enough to remember: I now live in Iowa. XD

Besides that, I spent yesterday recovering from a headache, sleeping, working out, installing (almost!) the last of the stuff onto the updated computer, lazing about, and doing work stuff. Today was pretty similar, with the addition of laundry, the dishes, watching the last of Honey and Clover (season one of the anime) and Doctor Who: The Next Doctor. Oh, and I ate a whole pizza and a dozen of those stick’em-in-the oven sugar cookies. (This falls under the category “Alison works out so she doesn’t look like a person who would/could eat that much.”)

I have no stake in this year’s Super Bowl, but as you can guess, I have an appreciation for the all-weekend pizza specials in its honor.

Well, I’d better get back to it. I have to make up for all of my goofing off! ;-)

How has your weekend been? I hope it was a good one!

Yet again, I predicted our local weather forecast had changed — to one of snow falling all weekend — thanks to my “human barometer” super power. I’m more accurate than the local meteorologists. Still, I wouldn’t mind giving this ability (and its humidity-induced headaches) back. ;-)

I got home tonight just in time to swing through the Taco John’s drive-thru and park myself in front of the TV for Smallville’s double-episode movie. Its first hour hooked me easily. Then, as is typical with any of the superhero stuff, my second hour was spent on Wikipedia trying to piece together who all these people were and how they related to each other in this version of the DC Universe. They explained everything fairly well on-screen. The impromptu computer session was more the result of me being both a tad obsessive and a research monster.

When I take my personal tendencies into consideration, it’s probably one reason I gravitate toward Japanese and Korean comics over a lot of the English-language comics. Manga and manhwa stories aren’t necessarily more self-contained, simple or streamlined. They can get just as complicated as anything else.

The background information I need to more fully enjoy Asian comics tends to be portable and cumulative across multiple, entirely unrelated titles. Think general societal and cultural knowledge — from details about daily life to mythology and folk tales — rather than the knowledge of a vast continuity, starring a cast of thousands. They’re closer to my experience reading Bill Willingham’s Fables (from Vertigo), which uses fairy tales, nursery rhymes and legends as its starting point. I still like the superhero sagas, but it takes me less time to dig into and be entertained by manga.

Time really is a factor these days. I’ve had both Malcom Gladwell’s Outliers and the last Harry Potter paperback sitting unread in my living room for a couple months. I won’t get to them this weekend, though. I have to do some work reading, but it will be fun… and you’ll hear about it post-podcast.

Two days posting in row? Really? (Yay!) ^_^

Happy New Year! One month late. XD

Sadly, this seems to be a recurring theme, eh?

While there are a bevy of reasons for this, dear blog readers (who are left), my main excuse is that I’ve had a wicked case of the winter blahs.

It’s cold, and I don’t function so well in the cold. Pretty much all I want to do, when I get home from the office (or stop working), is to curl up and go to sleep. I didn’t put up most of my Christmas decorations, and the cards just hit the mail about two weeks ago.

On the flip side, I actually have been pretty busy. Whether or not others would consider my version of extracurricular/non-work “busy” productive is another matter entirely.

• I had to set up my computer, again. This round was triggered by my main hard drive starting to fail, but I managed to avoid a repeat of the Fall 2009 catastrophe. (Go, me!)

• An inordinate amount of time has been spent importing my music collection into iTunes. I’m only up to the letter “H,” and I’ve been working on it, on and off, for over a month. I’m also slightly taken aback my how many of my CDs are in languages other than English. It seems I can’t (entirely) lay blame on my assistant for the J-pop/J-rock relapse. ^^;

• And I’ve been working out. A lot. As in, I do work out more days than I don’t work out. Very scary.

It’s getting late — and the 25 minutes of Psych that I fell asleep to earlier this week are beckoning — so I’ll ramble on some more later!

Turns out the answer to the last post was a simple “yes!”

November was as excitement-filled and action-packed as I expected it would be. My dad came into town for a weekend and change to see me (in person, for the first time a couple years) and my current digs (for the first time ever). He was impressed with the workplace. He also made fast friends with Kitty-mon, which is kind of unusual, since those who have met her know she fits the definition of a “scaredy cat.” (She even wandered around the house for several days after his departure with a disappointed look on her face.) It was nice having him here. And he did survive the J-pop onslaught, even in its current, boy band-heavy state.

Beyond that, I’ve been in hardcore planning mode for work and for me, personally. I’m running out of steam tonight, but I’ll be back. My blogging track record indicates the month of December leaves ample room for both self reflection and navel-gazing. ;-)

Hey. I’ve been busy doing lots of things:

• working;
• consuming a great deal of music (the stack of CDs in my living room is getting out of control);
• horrifying selected coworkers with super-poppy/peppy J-pop;
• attempting to catch up on a  few of my ongoing manga series;
• working;
• updating Aligator Pop;
• finding one of the elusive, pink Domo Qees;
• getting the brother’s birthday present (from June) to him before it overlaps with his Christmas present;
• watching Gators football;
• starting to knit yet another scarf because I always get tired of the ones I already have; and
• preparing for a family member to visit in the next few weeks. Yay!*

* I wonder if he’ll be able to withstand the J-pop/K-pop/J-rock onslaught? Hee. Cackle.

It’s been a busy — but O.K. — week and a half, capped off by a really good day yesterday.

October 14th marked three years to the day when the cat, my obscenely loaded truck and I set off from Florida on a trek halfway across the country to land in the current location. Today is my third anniversary at the Stuf, and I’m going to fully claim it, since most of my Sunday has been spent working (minus brief breaks for exciting tasks like laundry). I love my job — some might say I love it a little too much — and I’ve learned a lot about myself in the process. I’m looking forward to more years in this weird, wild and wonderful corner of the entertainment industry.

Saturday was pretty darn awesome.

• I hauled my very expensive vacuum cleaner to the repair shop where they changed its belt and cleaned it up for me for the grand total of $3. It also probably helped that I ran there in grubby sweats, with my hair in a pony tail and no makeup. The repair guy thinking I’m younger than I truly am made the state of the vacuum just slightly less obnoxious. (I sure as heck wasn’t sticking my hand in there to clean it!) This particular appliance being functional is very important as I prep for the upcoming parental visit.

• My latest stash of J-poppy goodness finally arrived. Please note: The “finally” in the previous sentence is only indicative of my impatience, not the length of time the goods actually took to reach me. Beyond the Arashi “Everything” single, this was a very V6 shipment, including their second Best of collection and the “Guilty” single. (Yay!)

• The new-to-me DVD player acquired from one of the office’s videophiles is hooked up and STELLAR. To put this in perspective, there was nothing wrong with my previous unit, and even so, I can tell the difference. (This is a very nice thing heading into this time of year.)

• I finished the BBC’s State of Play mini-series. Seriously loved the writing and the cast.

• The Gators won, which is a very good thing because the last thing you want is a Homecoming crowd full of cranky alumni. ;-)

All right. Back to work, again!

I love shopping, but I hate going to the grocery store. With a passion and to the point that I will do almost anything within reason to avoid going.  This past week, I ended up there three times, and two of the times, it was because I ran out of Red Bull. Beyond those, plus excursions for barbecue and to Panera for soup, I stuck pretty close to home. It wasn’t my original intention, especially for the weekend, but on Friday night — while I was heating up dinner — I came down with an ocular migraine that morphed into a “real” migraine, incapacitating me for most of yesterday and leaving me shaky for most of today. Good times.

The weather is changing — the temperature drop is probably what triggered the headache — but it also means the leaves will be turning soon. While I don’t dig highs in the 60s, at this point, I do like the reds, yellows and oranges. They’re pretty. I just hope the tree in front of my house holds on to its leaves long enough for me to see them in the daylight. ;-)

I should get my camera set up again. I should also fix the scarf I started knitting (and never finished) last spring. While I have many, it could definitely come in handy soon…

A slightly melodramatic title, BUT the blog behaving badly has been a source of unneeded stress this week. Let’s see if this does it. If so, I get to call it a night for Internet stuff. (Fingers crossed!)

You know the weirdness I thought I extricated from my RSS feed? Well, it was back with Sunday night’s posting, so I’ve killed the comments at this blog, which were apparently a backdoor to trigger hijinks. If you’re someone who actually knows me — and wants to reply to something I’ve mentioned here — feel free to hit me up on Twitter (super-public) or Facebook (semi-public).

Beyond that, my campaign to go through the motions at being healthy continued yesterday with this year’s flu shot. My arm still hurts, and it took me out of commission last night. I also got my first eye exam in a while. The good news: My eyesight is getting marginally better before ocular middle age hits, and I become both near-sighted and far-sighted — and need bifocals. :-P

Actually, it really is good news. It means I can take my time finding (and budgeting for) the new glasses I want to get. Plus, when I do, I’ll have a very stylish back-up pair. (There’s nothing wrong with my current glasses. I’ve just worn them for three years straight, so I’m kind of sick of them.)

I’m going to be semi-responsible and wrap this up. ‘Night, all!