Takoyaki Journals

Bad Thing:
The economy has officially hit work. We're going to have to cut 1/3rd of our production in January. I'll still be going in to work every day, as far as I know, but people on the line won't be, and will either have to use vacation time or not get paid. This is way worse than the worse rumor that had been floating around. And there's still no word on what February and March will be like. Usually by this time of year we know what the general forecast for the entire fiscal year is going to be.

Now, I don't think my company is in danger of going under, and I don't think my job is at stake. Being a Honda supplier puts me in as good a position as I could possibly be. So this is officially Worrying. But not yet Terrifying.

Good Thing:
I got my flight to Oregon fixed! I'm really looking forward to seeing exgentlemen and ideographer in a week and a half! It's been way too long. I bought my tickets back in July, at which point they were Columbus to Salt Lake City to Portland. This week when I went back to check they were (get this) Columbus to Cincinnati, Cincinnati to Salt Lake City, and...Salt Lake City to Salt Lake City....with a 164 hour layover in Portland. Oh, and the flight OUT of Salt Lake City left BEFORE I arrived. I called tech support, which was in India, and got nowhere slowly. So then I wrote an e-mail, and within a few hours had a reply that I am now flying from Columbus to Atlanta to Portland. Yay!

Bad Thing:
Season One of Merlin is OVER! *sob* At least it didn't end on a gigantic cliffhanger. And it's official that there will be a second season.

Good Thing:
TNT's 'Librarian' Movies. They're great, silly, Indiana Jones fluff about a secret society of Librarians that guard the world's mystic treasures. The dialog is surprisingly good. And in the first one Bob Newhart has a fight scene! I caught part of the third one, which made me Netflix the first one, and now TNT seems to be doing marathons of them.

Odd Thing:
Sticky Fingers Scone Mix is made of Win. All you have to do is add water, and drop spoonfuls onto a baking pan. And they taste great and have just the right consistency...just like the ones flidgetjerome fed me in London. Every time I find some in a grocery store I stock up, because they're kind of hard to find. But they had them at my local Kroger! HOWEVER the mix they had was Eggnog flavored. Which is not bad, but rather odd for a scone.

You know when you think, 'gee I need to post about that thing that happened,' but before you can, something else happens that you really need to post about, but you really ought to post about that first thing first. And then there's a third thing, and the next thing you know it's a new MONTH? Well, here's a recap of what's been going on:

• Met John Green of Nerdfighter fame, got my books signed. He's exactly like he is on youtube, very intelligent and funny. And my internal bar for 'the kind of writer I dream to be' was significantly raised. When he walked in the room it was Beatlemania. The girls sitting on the floor beside me (because there were no more chairs, even arriving a half hour early) with their Nerdfighter t-shirts hyperventilated at the sight of John, 'OMG did you SEE him!' I've never seen a reaction like that for an author before.



• Went to my cousin's wedding in St. Louis, which was lovely. Got to catch up with all the family, who are now all big in Facebook. Watched my 87 year old grandmother do air guitar to 'Walk This Way' at the reception.



• Learned how to increase in knitting. Made a shawl, but ran out of yarn when I went to fringe it. Must learn more about this 'gage' buisness. How is it that I used smaller needles and 100 yards more yarn than the project called for and ended up with a shawl that was bigger than intended (even though it seemed too small) and not enough yarn for the fringe?



• flidgetjerome got me hooked on BBC's new show Merlin, which is a wacky remix of Arthurian legend where Merlin is the same age as Prince Arthur, and his servant, in a Camelot where magic is banned. It is UTTER CRACK. I have not squeed at a show like this in years and years. This show seriously hits like every fandom sweet spot that has ever existed. I predict uberfandom. I have already written an episode tag fic for it, but didn't have a chance to fix it before...



• Nanowrimo kicked off! I had a lovely time at the Dayton kickoff party. It was so good to see my friends again. And the newbies seem like an excellent bunch. I of course, ignored everyone's wonderful advice on what project to work on, and have started a Wodehousian romantic comedy set in the 1920s involving costume jewelry, the revival of the Irish Wolfhound, the knitting of baby booties and the Charleston. I haven't decided what I want to do about sharing it this year. I'm thinking of just e-mailing chapters to whoever's interested. So if you are, please drop me a comment, or catch me in chat.



• Lastly, I voted! My county seat is located on my way down to Dayton, so I woke up early Saturday morning and went down. The voting area had only been open for about an hour, so it was very un-crowded. I think I was probably only there about 10 minutes, including filling in my sheet. This early voting thing is excellent for Nanowrimo. No waiting hours to vote and missing out on writing time!



• ETA: Oh! I forgot. I also had my Japanese coworker's family over for chili, cornbread and pumpkin carving. The kids were all gungho for an 'American experience' until they caught sight of my manga. So after we ate our chili (real American food!) the mom and I carved pumpkins and gossiped while the kids read manga and watched my bootleg Detective Conan dvds. I like getting to hang out with them.



• ETA II: AND! I also forgot! My company passed their ISO Recertification audit! WOO! This is a much bigger company, and the systems are even worse than they were at my old job, so this was 3 days long and like, 5 times as grueling. It was a total roller coaster, with the auditors being totally impressed with our progress one minute, and threatening to never come back again the second. But we passed! And did better than we ever have!