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Ronin Economist

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[04 Jun 2004|11:50am]
I am more or less awake today. My eyes are bright red where they are supposed to be white and I am weeping bloody tears. It's very goth.

Oh the bright side, I have more depth perception already.

Eye hurt, though, and the fucking Tylenol ain't helping. BAak to floppin.
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[02 Jun 2004|10:20pm]
Surgery tomorrow morning. If I don't return to posting after five days... assume that I'm being lazy as usual.

Coby is being dutiful and taking the day off work to drive me to the hospital and back. And I got tickets to see Prisoner of Azkaban with everyone Friday night. I don't care if I'll be seeing double, quadruple, or not at all in that point, I'm going.

The doctors are reassuring me that I should be able to see just fine afterwards. Except for even worse double vision for a few days. Or a few weeks. Or it could be blurry. But I should be able to drive the very next day! But maybe I shouldn't.

Not so reassuringly, the doctors still haven't told me whether they're performing surgery on one or both eyes. They said they will discuss it tomorrow morning. Personally, I have no preference -- on one hand, two bloodshot eyes are symmetrical, on the other, one bloodshot eye can be stylishly concealed with a piratey eyepatch.

It's hard to explain what's actually wrong with my eyes, since I don't quite understand it myself. So at [info]regyt's request, I Photoshopped one of the pics I took in LA into a quick and dirty approximation. This is what normal people (and cameras) see while driving:



And this is what I see:



OK, cameras can't drive. But you get the idea.

And now I should go wash my hair so as not to overpower the surgeons with its stink as they lean over my head tomorrow.
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Take your skanky butt cleavage and go back to Wal-Mart! [24 May 2004|09:59am]
  • I've cultivated a lovely caffeine addiction thanks to sitting next to the coffee machine at work. Now I can't fully wake up without two cups, and my teeth are getting stained. Ugh. Time to pick up some WhiteStrips and wean myself off. Why do I do this to myself at least once a year?

  • Met Kat and Matt for a trip to the new Dulles Air & Space Museum Saturday. It's a huge hangar with all these historical planes and gliders and rockets. Very cool! The gift shop has models of a bunch of historical planes, including the Enola Gay. Maybe I'm being overly PC, but who would have that in their house?

  • Then we stopped by the supermarket and a Russian store, where Kat terrified the saleswoman by speaking English at her. I calmed her down with some well-placed Russian and got pirozshki and Very Hard Salami. At their house, we dined on a Mongolian hot pot dish from an official book of Chinese recipes featuring good Communist Chinese on the cover. I wonder how many chefs had to die for our delicious hot pot.

  • Sunday night was Moti's graduation celebration. We had beer. And food. And rejoicing, for Moti is getting out of our house! We love you, Moti, it's about time you had that degree.
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When did I become old and boring? [18 May 2004|09:21am]
Current preferred timewasters:

- Comcast digital cable. At any given time, there's some movie on with subtitles. Bliss! And OnDemand for series I'm too disorganized to watch regularly.

- OkCupid. I uploaded a flattering picture and now have a steady trickle of entertainment in sending mean responses to guys who message me. Such fun! All of you who use personals sites for their intended purpose are probably seething right now. Sorry.

- Being good and going over Japanese textbooks to brush up before I start taking classes again. I have to take regular intervals to shake off disgust at how fucking useless textbooks and classes are when you're trying to learn to actually communicate with Japanese people. And not have them laugh at you. If you are learning Japanese from a book or class that starts off by teaching you the desu/masu style, I suggest you get your money back while you still can.

- Sweetened condensed milk. It makes me sick after a few spoonfuls, but sooo sweet and gooey. It's a Russian thing.

- Interior design wanking. This is the old and boring part. Coby's been bringing home magazines like "Modern Bedrooms" and watching all those shows on BBC America. Then we argue about what's ugly. And make collages in Photoshop. The hope is that eventually this will all resolve itself into a doable and affordable plan. The new condo is small, so we can't just be plunking furniture down willy-nilly, without a design plan, color schemes, or photo reference! Oh god I must kill myself now.

- One more thing before I stab myself to death with a promotional pen, does anyone know DC area stores that might import Japanese furniture? We have this harebrained scheme in mind for the living room...
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Only you HP geeks will truly know my woe [12 May 2004|10:30pm]
Went to the second pediatric ophthalmologist today, got some more questions answered. I guess surgery it is. They've done it hundreds of times, and that's just on adults. And the recovery's only a couple of days of blurry and double vision.

But... but... the date they want me to have it is June 3rd!
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It's a small, sad geeky world [10 May 2004|07:22pm]
The idiotic flash mob trend is alive and well in the DC area. Except here we have automotive flash mobs. It's impossible to explain the sudden and random traffic jams otherwise. If I ever track down the fuckmonkeys who organize them, I will not be responsible for my actions.

Traffic annoyances aside, the weekend went well. Saturday night was Laura's birthday party. I'd organized a collection toward a PS2, but intelligently lost the card people were supposed to sign as they gave me their contributions. So I couldn't give it to Laura at her party until everyone showed up, and didn't feel like going back down to the car at that point. I schemed to get Moti and Coby to distract her instead, and while she was looking away, hid it in her closet. Not very well -- Laura, did you figure out right away that I shoved something in your closet, or did it take until I went in there ahead of you and closed the door when you wanted to get a bag?

It was a fun party, with lots of people from diverse groups more or less interacting, and really good dips. Mmm, dips. Sadly, I was very tired and zoned out about two hours in.

Sunday Coby and I went climbing at the Earth Treks Indoor Climbing Facility. I'd never been climbing before, and I'd forgotten that I'm afraid of heights. So I'd easily get about two thirds of the way up the wall, then stop to rest, look around, realize that I'm thirty feet up, panic, and jump down. Rinse, repeat. How embarrassing.

I did manage to finish a couple of easy climbs eventually, and it was fun overall. Coby has two more guest passes and then I'll probably be too cheap to join as a member, but we'll see. I won't get much out of it if I freak out and jump off every time I pause -- but it gives me an idea for a flash game! Acrophobia Climbing, can you reach the top before your climber's panic meter runs out?

This morning my weak girly arms were sore. And I bought the sneakers, 'cause if there's anything econ majors are good at, it's creative accounting.
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Bring on the evil monocle. [08 May 2004|02:25pm]
After considering that doctors probably know what they're talking about, I went and replaced the lenses in my glasses like a good girl. No shoes, no books for me.

The first thing I noticed after putting them on was that everything in the distance was much sharper. It's a stronger prescription. The second thing I noticed is that my double vision was as bad as ever, with the added bonus of no blurring in the doubled images. The third thing I noticed is illustrated in the below photos.

It seems that the problem the kiddie doctor sought to correct was not the double vision. No, not that. It was me saying, "But I don't look cross-eyed!" that stuck with her. Clearly my real problem is not the fucked up eye muscles themselves; it's that no one notices! And for the bargain price of $209, that problem has been fixed.

Observe:

Without glasses:


With glasses:



I am about to fucking kill someone.
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More consumer woes. [06 May 2004|01:37pm]
Events are conspiring against me on the eye thing.

I got my current glasses in December, a month before I could sign up for a vision plan with my old work.

I turned down the vision plan at my new company because hey, I won't be needing new glasses for a while and contacts are cheap.

Two days after the benefits election deadline, the kiddie eye doctor told me I need new glasses. "Gah," said I, "can't you just stick a knife in my eye and twist it?"

"Oh, we'll do that, too," she said, "but we can't fix you completely without the right prescription lenses." I winced, thinking of the cost, and she added, "you just need new lenses, it won't cost as much as a complete pair."

HA! You are SO wrong, Doctor! LensCrafters quoted me a price for my lenses in the new prescription, and it was MORE than what I paid for the glasses. Take THAT, you patronizing medical practitioner!

Admittedly I had a coupon when I got the glasses back in December. I looked for coupons now, but they all apply only to complete pairs of glasses, and even if I go through the trouble of picking out new frames it'll still be $200+.

There are online places that replace lenses for around $100 (which is how much I was expecting to pay in the first place), but I'd need to mail my glasses in and wait to get them back and I need the new lenses by Wednesday. The eye doctor wants to see if adjusting the prescription helps.

I am displeased. And sulking over the expense. I don't want new glasses! I want these shoes.

You fucking opticians. Fuck you.
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Popularity woes [04 May 2004|12:06pm]
It had to happen sooner or later. Sunday I stood next to a grey-green Corolla, repeatedly mashing the "unlock" button on the remote keychain and wondering why the lights weren't flashing and the locks weren't clicking. Eventually I noticed the lack of a Chococat licence plate holder and found my actual car three spaces away.

[tantrum] People! Stop buying my car in the same color, goddammit! If I wanted to get confused in every parking lot, I'd have gotten in it silver! Wah! [/tantrum]

At least I'm not yet in Coby's situation, where it takes him an average of three attempts to find the right silver Camry.
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[29 Apr 2004|12:40pm]
Thanks for voting in the poll, everyone, I appreciate knowing how different people feel about things like that.

The results seemed to skew toward increasing privacy with age. Or with higher income, since age and income have a positive correlation.

Personaly, I avoid volunteering specific financial info unless it's something like, "Ack! I have to pay a $10k fine for sheep abuse!" but will bring up generalities when they seem relevant.

Lots of people on my friends list whine about lack of money, but no one starts posts with "So my investments are doing really well and I just bought a 500k house..." So there's a politeness thing going on, with people no wanting to brag. It is appreciated.

I got to thinking about money issues because of the condo purchase and all the financial finagling going along with it. Coby's bosses keep offering advice, but I feel really weird talking to people who are not my accountant about specifics of money. Not that I have an accountant, but maybe I should get one.

Aother kind of privacy is medical privacy, and I have absoluely no shame about that. I've been reading up about eye muscle surgery and co-workers are raising their eyebrows as I squirm at my desk. Freaks me right out. I do have some questions to bring to the doctor now, though, as there's a procedure that can be done in adults but not in kids that increases the chances of the first surgery succeeding. Which would be good!

There's also something like Botox for the eye muscles, but I can't seem to find anything detailed on it.
7 percent|| |||Raise the interest rate

Opinion poll! [28 Apr 2004|11:12am]
Just curious, as it's come up recently...

Poll #285840 Monnnneey
Open to: All, results viewable to: All

How private do you consider your finances?

View Answers

As private as my sex life.
5 (20.8%) 5 (20.8%)

As private as my sex life. (I blog about my sexcapades daily.)
2 (8.3%) 2 (8.3%)

I have no problem discussing them with pretty much anyone.
6 (25.0%) 6 (25.0%)

Only my accountant knows!
4 (16.7%) 4 (16.7%)

What finances?
7 (29.2%) 7 (29.2%)



Edit: Gah, why is it in Russian?

Edit 2: And now in German!

Edit 3: Oh, never mind.
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My eyes! A condo! [27 Apr 2004|06:41pm]
As they say, I have good news and bad news.

Good news: we have found a crack house to our liking. And, more importantly, have offered an (egregious) amount of money to the seller's liking.

Bad news: I may need eye surgery.

Details below!

On the crack house front, the seller faxed over the signed contract this afternoon. This is good! The crack house in question is a condo in Takoma Park, which you may remember as one of the first places to pass a resolution opposing the Patriot Act. I think of it as the place gay couples move to from Dupont Circle after they've adopted a kid. As such, taxes are sky-high, but it's pretty nice otherwise.

The condo itself is too perfect not to have something grievously wrong with it, so I'm keeping my hopes down until we've checked out the condo docs and settled. (And then we'll move in to find out it's a Hellmouth or something...) Expect boring, exhaustive updates on the process for the next few weeks. But whee! Condo!

On the eye surgery front, that's pretty much it. They have to surgically correct the eye muscles. Pediatric ophthalmologist lady said there's no other way to fix my double vision, and marveled that no one had noticed my horrible horrible cross-eyed-ness before. She also said it was common in children adopted from Eastern Europe. (OK....)

I have to see the other doc at the practice for confirmation, and Coby insists I see his mom's eye surgeon too, so if I do have it it won't be for a few months. But damn, as much as I can't live with this double vision, knives in my eye scare the shit out of me. At least it's under full anesthesia, and has a short recovery time... Unless they screw up (20% chance) and I need to have a second surgery. Ugh. I've never had surgery before.
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Speak English, you mammoth-humping motherfuckers! [14 Apr 2004|08:46pm]
It is a dark time for mankind when the only adventure game out is Syberia 2.

Fucking Russians.
Fucking Russian Eskimos.
Fucking useless robots.
Fucking mammoths.
Goddammit.

Coby has brought home a very old Pentium 100 laptop, and he and Moti are playing old adventure games on it. Personally, I can't play a game more than once. Also, the laptop is discolored and sticky.

Bastards.

To add:

Around 6 am this morning, over an hour before I usually wake up, an owl went HOOT-HOOT right outside our freakin window, waking me up. Immediately, Floppy jumped up onto my HEAD and ATTACKED the window. You go girl, keeping us safe from that pesky glass. I was displeased.

But not enough to let her DIE, which is what the moronic vet and pharmacy people seem to want, considering they sent her Epogen UPS with minimal ice packing, so by the time we got it, it was WARM and USELESS. She hasn't had her twice-weekly shot in like two weeks.

Also, we lost the condo 'cause someone put in an all-cash offer. Whatever.
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How to profit from increased cremation rates [12 Apr 2004|06:24pm]
The vagaries of my job will have me attending the International Cemetery Directors' Conference next week. It is in Vegas. I have never been there, and will likely have some time to myself between meetings, so recommendations for stuff to do would be much appreciated. I mean, I could just stay hunched over the laptop in my large, lonely hotel room, but it'll be 75 degrees and sunny there.

In crack house news, we had a bit of success this past weekend, and are putting in an offer on a lovely condo belonging to a recently dead guy. "He could have been just an investor," said the real estate agent, but come on now. All this death, who knew it could be so profitable?
12 percent|| |||Raise the interest rate

[09 Apr 2004|06:11pm]
Working across the street from the White Flint mall is doing wonders for my wardrobe, if not my wallet. All my "I like this shirt, but not 30 dollars' worth" indecisiveness is easily defeated by being able to check stores several times a week and buy said shirt the very day it goes on sale. Also no one goes to White Flint mall to shop for clothes, so even when I discover the sale several days late, there's good stuff left in my sizes. All you local friends, please make it a point to compliment me on no longer wearing the same two outfits all the damn time. My bank statements will appreciate it.

Of course, just after I bought a bunch of nice spring-y clothes, it got cold and rainy again for two weeks. But now, the sun shines once more! Yay.

Happy Easter to Christians, and Happy Cheap Candy Monday to everyone else. (Non-Christian non-candy-eating people are probably a minority so small as to not be worth mentioning, but correct me if I offend.)
5 percent|| |||Raise the interest rate

ImageReady is surprisingly simple [08 Apr 2004|12:06am]
Mostly a GIP.

This past weekend, Cherry Blossoms Festival in DC. Japanese food, and, as you can see, unduly large gulps of unfiltered sake.

Sunday, more crack houses. One apartment was really nice, in a nice high-rise, but it had a bad vibe. An old people vibe. The place looked like my grandmother's apartment, and the whole building was too nice and quiet.

"You're crazy," said Coby and the real estate agent. "We didn't even see any old people!"

"That is because they are all holed up in their apartments," I replied, "waiting to die. And passing their time disapproving of anyone under 60 and making stupid rules to make their lives more difficult."

We were going to put an offer on the place pending a confirmed lack of stupid rules, but alas, I was right. As usual. Such a burden it is.

Today [info]regyt showed up and her friends came over for fondue. [info]jalenstrix brought her pot over and I bought one. The cheese and broth courses turned out excellently but the chocolate, unfortunately, seized. We tried again with a lower heat and it did it again, so we just ate the resulting fudge with spoons. A good time was had by all.

And now everyone is gone and I sleep.
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[30 Mar 2004|06:38pm]
Why did the same dose of DayQuil that kept me alert and functional through the morning precipitate extreme brain shutdown in the afternoon?

Stuff I want to post, but just stringing these words together took many minutes and a Herculean effort.
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[29 Mar 2004|07:06pm]
Perhaps the weekend jinx was local to NYC, because mine was pretty decent.

I saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind twice, which was sort of appropriate. The first time Friday, with Chisae, preceded by a really great dinner at Jaleo. All the restaurants in Bethesda put their outdoor tables out and we sat and ate and watched the doggies walk by. It was such a pleasant evening I decided to repeat it Saturday, with Coby and Moti and Omar this time. We ate at Cosi and then watched the movie. I am Charlie Kaufmann's devoted fangirl.

Sunday we looked at more crack houses. There was actually one really nice place, but sadly it lacked some important stuff. Alas! I weep for you, skylights, big deck and fireplace. Oh for a gas stove.

And today I feel sick. Maybe the jinx took a couple of days to travel South.
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Counter-revolutionary activity [26 Mar 2004|04:11pm]
I promised in the comments of my last post to stick to entries dealing with my exploitation of the proletariat.

Current exploitative scheme: Befriend Borders Cafe Staff, Secure Discounts.

I used to work next to a Barnes & Noble, and now I work next to a Borders. Borders has the advantage of a better manga selection, but Barnes & Noble was full of workers who knew me, which was good for discounts and even the occasional free drink. Thus, my plan:

Step 1: Go to Borders for lunch often enough for the cafe people to remember me.
Step 2: Make friends with them.
Step 3: MAD DISCOUNTS!!!!

Step 1 was completed by last week, when the cafe guys started recognizing me and not asking me what I want right away, because they know it takes me a minute to decide.

Yesterday, I ordered a tuna sandwich, and was paying for it, when the guy at the register said, "I wouldn't get that if I were you. We've gotten complaints about the tuna." I thanked him for the information, and asked him to recommend a better sandwich. He said, "The ham, I guess, but they pretty much all suck."

We chatted some more about food quality, making the people in line behind me wait. As I sat down to eat my ham sandwich, the taste proved him right. The sandwich was, in fact, bad. The cashier's concern for me clearly demonstrates that I'm now in Step 2. Mad discounts, here I come!

Little do the oppressed workers know that I, being a filthy capitalist pig-dog, am merely currying favor to get the aforementioned discounts! (And more food quality tips.) I laugh through my monocle at their naivete!

In other news of my oppression of the downtrodden, I have instituted a clothing-optional policy in my house that applies only to me.

ALL HAIL THE NAKED DICTATOR!
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Pandora Tomorrow and pandora yesterday, but never pandora today! [25 Mar 2004|11:27pm]
My eyes are all messed up. Apparently Reene eyes = dry, Reene eyes + birth control pills = super dry, and Reene eyes + birth control pills + contacts = Sahara Desert California forest fire dry.

My right eye started hurting a while ago and on my then-boss's recommendation I made an appointment at the practice she goes to. The ophthalmologist took a lot longer with me than my usual guy, and was really cute for a doctor. He told me that despite the sensation or a (large and sharp-edged) object in my right eye, there was no damage. Just much dryness. And then some more dryness. AND clogged something-or-other glands. How embarrassing.

Nevertheless, emboldened by all his diagnoses, I proceeded to complain about the double vision I get. It's made worse by glasses, sometimes to the point of having to cover one eye while driving in order to tell whether a car is in my lane or the next one over.

Dr. Really-Cute-For-A-Doctor looked deep into my eyes, flicked a few lenses, had me follow his finger, and pronounced me cross-eyed. He then handed me the card of a pediatric ophthalmologist. The shame!

I called her office today.

"I'd like to make an appointment...?"
Receptionist asks, "How old is the child?"
"Twenty-f----uh, it's not for a child. It's for me." The shame. Oh, the shame. "Dr. Really-Cute-For-A-Doctor said I have an eye movement disorder."

We decide on an appointment time.

"So, uh, does she get a lot of adult patients?"
Receptionist pauses. "Well, some. Not many, obviously."

So, anyone have a kid I can borrow for an afternoon in April?
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