25 February 2002

Well, it could have been a worse weekend, but it definitely could have been better.

The good news is that Matt's home from Washington, and he gets to stay for at least a week or so, and any future trips won't be for nearly so long.

We went out to dinner Friday night with Braz and Kris, and had a good time playing with Emma. And then I went home and got on the Hall and stayed up entirely too late, considering that we needed to be up by 10 on Saturday.

We did in fact get up at 10 on Saturday, much to my astonishment. (Actually, Matt got up earlier than that, but he hadn't stayed up until nearly 4 in the morning, either.) We piled into my car and headed out onto the town for our errands, ending up with.... (dramatic cue please)

...Matt's new car!

It's a 2002 Toyota Prius, a hybrid gas/electric car. I know it looks like the nose got chopped off; the electric battery is actually in the back of the car, between the back seat and the trunk. Unused power from the gas engine recharges the electric battery, so we don't have to plug it in or anything.

For you car buffs... It doesn't have the fastest pick up in the world, but it's better than Matt's old minivan, and it's perfectly acceptable for a fairly small car. It's got great mileage - ranging between 25 (stop/start) and 60 (cruising) mpg. The lower efficiency mileage is when the battery gets recharged, though. I'm not sure my car gets 25mpg when it's cruising.

And it's geek heaven. It's got... (another dramatic cue, please)

...an onboard touch-screen computer! The pictures show the energy consumption screen - which tells you your current mpg rate and tracks it for the past half hour (which you can't see much of, because I took that picture when we'd only been in the car for about two minutes); and the battery use screen - which shows you which parts are currently driving the car and whether the battery is being drained or recharged. The onboard computer also controls the radio.

I'm more excited about Matt's new car than he is, I think, but he's pretty happy.

Saturday evening, we went down to K.T.'s, where we had a great time sitting around and talking. Mostly about the Hall, of course. Then we went home, and I waffled for a while, but finally gave in and had another Hall session, and went to bed right around four.

Sunday I slept in until nearly noon. I should have slept in longer.

I was feeling industrious, though, so I did the dishes, and then I got out the envelope of tax stuff.

After two hours of struggling, going upstairs to locate last year's taxes, realizing that I'm still missing a form (I hope I didn't accidently throw it out) for my stocks, and alternating between paper, a spreadsheet, and a simple calculator, I was horrified to discover that my calculations have us owing nearly as much money as I made in a year when I was a graduate student - almost eight thousand dollars. Which isn't a lot to try to live on, but it's a heck of a lot to think about taking out of our savings account all at once.

Well, I'm sure we don't really owe that much. I thought of one thing I'd forgotten to itemize right after I turned the computer off in disgust; and a little later I realized that the way I'd added things up, there was at least $8,000 in income that I'd put in twice.

So I know I did something wrong. I just can't figure out what. Matt's supposed to call the broker who handled his stock options today and ask some questions, and I need to sit down and read the instructions more carefully.

But the whole thing left me feeling irritable and frustrated. By the time I'd calmed down, it was time for the 7th Sea combat we'd had scheduled to play out on IRC.

The less said about that, the better. First our irc server crashed and dumped us (we want our own server back!) and when we'd finally congregated on a different server, it turned out to be an intensely frustrating combat, leaving us with neither the confidence of victory nor the burning desire for revenge - which are really the only two optimal outcomes for game combat.

To make matters worse, I was trying to play two sessions at once, and the session that was strictly role-playing suffered for it. I thought this morning of at least three things I'd have done differently with the role-playing session if I hadn't been distracted by the 7th Sea combat. Ah, well. That's the way these things go.

I realized this weekend that you're probably getting tired of me saying, "Blah blah Hall, but I don't want to bore you with the details." You're bored with my not boring you with the details - especially since I know there's at least a handful of you (and I don't have much more than a handful of regular readers) who do want the details.

So I've decided not to bother. I'm going to talk about the Hall, damn it. I'll put it in this section by itself, so if you're not interested you can skip it without worrying about missing anything else. I even made up a cute little graphic. Actually, I'm not all that happy with the graphic. I'll come up with something else later.

That being said... Despite the late-night activity this weekend, most of the voices in my head are being relatively quiet today, which is probably good, since I have a fair amount of work to do.

Kevil is humming contentedly, though he's worrying a little about Loria's state of mind. Zoya's in hibernation (well, not literally, but she's not taking up much space in my head). Tarri is working hard and trying to cope with an annoying roommate. Dawn and his partner Dusk (I don't have a page for them, yet) are still being smugly mysterious for the most part, though I'm slowly coaxing Dawn's origin story out of him.

Which brings us up to Monday, I suppose. Back to the grind...

--Liz