Hilary Booth... of course!

All right, I've fallen off a bit on updating this LJ. Mainly because there was little to report other than my unemployment woes. I thought I'd spare you that. It wasn't pretty. I am currently temping at a nice little assignment for an unknown amount of time. All my romantic notions about peer reviewed publications is going out through the window. But it's employment and there's been a sincere lack of assignments lately, so I'll take what I can get. This group actually asked for me specifically, since I'd done work for them before, which felt good.

Other excitement, I went to Small Press Expo in Bethesda on Saturday. Then Sunday I sat down to watch the Redskins lose... to the Detroit Lions. The Lions hadn't won in nearly two years. Ouch, that really hurt. But somehow our young coach is still our coach. Old Danny Boy is notorious for having a short leash, so we'll see how long that lasts. That's nothing compared to criticisms hurled at Jason Campbell, our quarterback. Early last season everyone was singing both of their praises... how quickly it changes.

Some weekends I love being a football fan, sometimes I hate it. This year I'm getting more of the former. My Crimson Tide are surprising everyone, including me, by winning their first five games and now ranked #2 in the nation. But we're not running out the bandwagon yet. Last year proved that painfully when we lost to Louisiana-Monroe. My Redskins surprised me by beating the hated Dallas in the last regular season Skins-Dallas matchup in Texas Stadium. The last coach to do that was George Allen back about when I was born. Now if both my teams could stop making it really close at the end, I'd be obliged. (I was having Arkansas flashbacks with the Georgia game. It wasn't pretty.)

Tomorrow I will join the world of the brown-baggers in bringing a lunch. You wouldn't believe how hard it was to find a lunch bag after the Back-to-School season. I just don't trust paper bags, especially with the rainy weather we've had lately. I keep telling myself it'll be cheaper in the long run.

Dan Snyder has learned nothing in his time with Joe Gibbs. He fired both Gregg Williams and Al Saunders and already hired coordinators even though he has no head coach. And the current favorite: Jim Fassel, the old Giants coach. Ick.

US Skating championships are on NBC. That's breaking my brain. And yet there's Dick Button still covering the sport. Jaime Sale has really short hair. I almost didn't recognize her! And then we get Hammond, Hamilton and Bezic. *sighs* And only seven months until Beijing...

Happy birthday confettiofstars! We celebrated it in high style on Saturday evening with darthblitzkrieg and their friend in Baltimore. On a previous trip, I'd wandered around Little Italy, but I didn't know enough about the restaurants to choose something. Dinner was at Della Notte with its very Romanesque ambience with columns, marble busts, and immense tree in the center of the main dining room. No, I'm not kidding.

However, if you wanted real authentic Baltimore and its unique local color, you went over to Vaccaro's for dessert. The place has been around since 1956 and it's the perfect after dinner stop. If you're used to a short list of desserts, your mouth will drop when you see two pages worth, not counting all the drinkables. I almost wish I drank coffee, because it seemed like just the place for a little cup of espresso/cappuccino. You can scan the pastry shelves to see what looks yummy. (Just about everything, I might add!)

Now I've grown used to people adding nuts to my chocolate cake. I like mine plain, thank you very much. I know I'm odd. It's just a thing. So when I spotted the Chocolate Cannoli Cake, I was prepared to be disappointed. Actually, no, that version didn't have any nuts, just heavenly cannoli cream sandwiched with devil's food cake. The vanilla version had almonds all around the edges, but the chocolate one used chocolate chips instead. Cake excuses much. *pleased little sigh*

Baltimore wasn't quite done having fun with us. Our nearest neighbors were chatting about politics. From what little I heard, I knew somehow confettiofstars would get involved. I didn't want anyone to ruin her birthday. Fortunately it turned into a good-natured little interaction, rather than fisticuffs. They didn't mind Republicans, as long as they were Green ones. The two of them were a riot. Now all of us assumed they were married. Until they were ready to leave and she sorta apologized for him saying before she left -- "I could never be married to someone like him". That dumbfounded all of us. Never let it be said that visiting Baltimore isn't without its moments.

I had a great time. I came home way way too late. I do wish that some of good feeling had trickled over to my sports teams. Alabama lost to flipping La-Monroe. For this we wanted Saban? And those scowls and dejected sighs you heard in a DC elevator Monday morning? Were all the Redskins fans after losing yet another close game, this one to our hated rivals the Cowboys. Ironically DC is where you'll find a fair number of Cowboy fans. At least someone will be happy this morning.

So both my teams won this week. Bama blew out the Vols and the Skins held on for dear life against the Cardinals. We always used to have close games with them when they were still in the division. Next week is the juggernaut New England. Do not want!

I swung by the local library to return Connie Willis' "D.A" (short, unsubstantial, and disappointing) and discovered they've started a regular Graphic Novels section. They've had a comics/manga section in the Young Adult section with your Naruto and Spiderman and Xmen. The new section is small enough it's still shelved with the new books, but I brought home Will Eisner's "Best of Spirit" collection and I saw Fables and Meltzer JLA and the Complete Peanuts. I'm not sure what prompted this change, but we must encourage it, especially I see more DC represented.

Dinner with confettiofstars chatting about everything and anything as usual. I now am the proud owner of a Ra-Heru-akhety statue. He's guarding my desktop. Maybe he can give me guidance over the monitor.

Yes, I'm having desktop issues again, the same ones I had before. For some reason, the monitor cable keeps coming loose. I can be working on perfectly and it'll be sitting for awhile and suddenly poof, no monitor. I've restarted it twice now. I'm going to hunt the Dell site and see if they sell a monitor cable. Or would they be a simple Best Buy visit? (It's a flat screen if that helps/hurts.) I really don't want to replace the monitor again.

Oh, I just love football season. These night games are going to be the death of me.

When people find out I went to Alabama, they always ask if I'm a football fan. Why yes, I've been one for many years. Football however never factored into my decision to go to the school. At the time I was starting, Bama was long past its Bear Bryant heyday. While I was there, I saw the end of the Bill Curry era and the glorious National Championship with Gene Stallings. And a Redskins Super Bowl. Hence the reason I joke the only way the Skins are going to win one again is if I leave town. Not my preferred way of them winning...

I blame my love of football on my father. Every Sunday he listened to the radio/tv broadcasts of the Redskins. He always muted the tv commentators so he could listen to the Redskins team of SonnySam&Frank. They might be irritating sometimes, but they were *our* irritants, thank you very much. Now he's stuck in a weird limbo of Jacksonsville/Miami/Tampa Bay. Not quite the seventh circle of hell or the pits of Tartarus, but close enough.

I was thinking about this Saturday night when Bama was playing Arkansas in a nailbiter of repeat of last year. (And then returned to the AP top 25 -- not too shabby.) Both teams have huge stadiums. They can command some of the largest home crowds in the game, easily 90,000. I've been to both stadiums, although Fedex was for a Notre Dame-Navy game. I was so far up I could see the parking lot! Not quite the intimacy or rocking 'n rolling of old RFK, but boy is it a fun place to be when everything's going right.

I didn't plan it though.

*blinks, blinks*

I honestly expected us to get creamed by the Saints.

What a way to surprise me, guys.

I changed my layout to one of the new themes. I couldn't resist the little skater... or the fox. *shrugs* I'm so very predictable.

And we lost. Our luck finally ran out this season. Holmgren can finally say he beat the Redskins. I don't know. Whenever sportscasters mention those "X has never done Y before" type stats, you just have an ugly feeling in the pit of your stomach that it's going to happen.

On the bright side, we did make the playoffs this year. I'm inclined to see the glass half full, instead of nearly empty.

This has been a depressing weekend for sports. Both Bama and Redskins lost at the last minute. I know, I know, they gave a good ole try... *cries in my Sunkist*

On the bright side, I received a confirmation letter from Media West's hotel, so at least I don't have to worry about those arrangements. Instead I can plan my door. Do I want a Sheppard door or do I go with my fannish Jacks door I came up with last year? Decisions, decisions...

So after a pile of paperwork, I have a new job. I won't start until next week because they're still figuring out where I'm going to sit. I'm indexing a lot of small DV footage, which should be entertaining. I had to be fingerprinted, which was amusing. They used a high tech scanner. Apparently my fingers don't have a lot of oil on them, so the prints were sometimes be too light. When I had to roll the fingerprint, I kept being too dark, because I was putting too much pressure. It was a comedy of errors.

Amusing note seen in the paper: Tuesday after the Skins victory, the Metro announcement gave their usual stern warning to alert WMATA people if you saw anything suspicious. There was an addendum however. "If you see three or four people standing around crying, they're probably Dallas Cowboys fans." Ouch. Reminds me of the times I'd be flying in to Washington and they'd give us the score on the people movers back to the terminal.