I've been up since about 5am, listening to birds waking up. Why they have to be so noisy at the crack of dawn and then go silent is a mystery to me. Are they harder to locate once the sun's actually up?

Melody is so affectionate now, it's hard to recognize her as the bitch she was when I first brought her home. She and Mittens still do not get along, but I don't come home to tufts of random cat hair any longer. And he, weaponless, holds his own against her. I caught him one day thwapping her so hard on her skull that I could hear it from across the room.

Currently, I have Melody curled up beside me, purring. If I sat such that I have a lap, she would immediately curl into that. Unfortunately, she has claws and even though she doesn't mean it, she will unfurl them into my leg as she stretches and gouge me. She wants to be in physical contact with me, though, so even though her body is over there, her paws are thrust out against me...claws imbedded in my skin.

Now that I share an office with a door, I might take her in to work with me. SteveD likes cats. Maybe he'd like to have one hanging by her nails from his leg? :)

Lately I feel as though I'm rushing towards something but I'm not sure what it is. It's a sense of anticipation that's not unhappy, but it leaves my mind racing around, wondering what it is. That makes it difficult for me to sleep, which tempts me to take benadryl at night so I can get some rest.

It's partly excitement at getting to work at E3. This would be the first time for me so I'm not jaded or bored with the idea. Ask me when it's over and my response will likely be different! But I like to travel and I don't mind giving speeches in front of people, so it'll be an experience for me.

Also, E3 is followed immediately by our trip to Hawaii. I'm hoping my mom took it to heart when I told her that Barb and I are taking her to dinner on Mother's Day but that we're not rich and she's likely to end up at the sushi-via-little-boats place that we went to on my last visit. Still, knowing our sainted mother, she is thinking of asking for something a lot more exciting.

Which reminds me...Barb! Have one of your minions make reservations someplace or we'll be taking her to L&L! :D

My future Office- and former Coffee-Mate, SteveD, has a blog (see below, everyone has a blog). Recently, he commented about the announcement of Star Trek's next movie.

I'm a trekker at heart, so I had read a couple of news bits about the forthcoming movie with some trepidation. It'll be very interesting to see how it turns out! While Star Wars' prequels weren't up to the hype and anticipation, I think we've had enough less-than-stellar (so to speak) Star Trek movies to kind of be used to it. I'd like to get chicken skin watching the new movie the way I did when the first Star Trek movie came out.

Meanwhile, here's a way to get your kind of original episode fill: Star Trek: New Voyages. They do a very nice job of recreating the sets and feel of the original series. The acting is occasionally stretched, but overall I'm enjoying it quite a bit. They've got the music, the transition suspense and great special effects. And apparently, they're also going to have Walter Koenig in the next episode. How cool is that?

If you download the episodes, you might try this mirror site, as it has much shorter times than the mirror I used last night. Enjoy!

Everybody's doing some kind of blog thing now. You can't look at anything, even news sites, on the internet without seeing a link to some kind of blog.

Even I have a blog! :)

One thing that I find interesting is the proliferation of experts. I wonder what I might be an expert at, that I could comment sagely about something. I like to cook, but I'm no expert there. I like to read, but wouldn't folks rather read the stuff themselves than read what an anonymous internet blog says about whatever it is?

Even gamers have blogs!

I might occasionally post something about a game I'm playing, but some of these folks do this all the time. How they come up with new ideas to talk about amazes me. I work on a game, but I don't think I could write about what I think makes our game better than the competition, or on par with it, or how the gaming industry does this or that -- and come up with a new twist every day.

This is the same perplexity in my soul that means I see weapon X, wondering if it is better than weapon Y, and I'll have absolutely no real feel for it...other than, can X hit harder than Y? Yet there's blogs with stats, charts and even their own forums so folks can drop by to essentially blog a blurb about a blog. It's mind-boggling to me. Wouldn't you rather play the game being talked about than just read what some other player is saying about it?

Moving is always stressful, exciting, fretful and...kind of fun!

We've been hearing for a while now that the folks on our team were going to be moved around within our office space. Some of the designers sit farther away from the team than others and moving us around will bring us closer to the rest of the gang. The first wave of moves started last night.

I now have the largest office in the entire company. Muahahaha!

Of course, that's because all the mechanics folks moved into their new space, leaving me the former conference room in which we all shared cubicles. Meanwhile, I have the largest office in the world!

I won't move until next week, so this afternoon my new roomie and I scoped out our future home. We calculated where our desks will go very carefully as neither of us wants our back to the door. I have no idea what demons haunt Steve that he needs to eye the door, but I know who my demon is. He shall be foiled! Once I actually move...until then, he'll continue to sneak up behind me and startle me into profanity.

The men have been pimping up their restroom ever since one of them found out that the women's restroom had a couple of plants on the counter.

Now they have a mouthwash dispenser, one of the plants from the women's restroom (the plants were not doing so well where they were anyway...maybe they need mouthwash) and the latest innovation, a radio. When the door opens, everyone can hear it up and down the hall.

Next thing you know, they'll have hot shaving cream dispensers, warm towels and aromatherapy. It'll be good for them. Then they'll understand why, sometimes, a girl likes to be surrounded by nice things when she gets her hair cut and nails done.

My hair is ruined. I'm not sure if it's a reaction between the water locally and the hair color I've used or something else, but instead of silky, flowing hair I've noticed that lately my hair is rather oogie-feeling. It's hard to describe. Sometimes when I touch it, I feel as though it's been melted, or is covered in wax. Just...feels...oooogie! I've decided not to color it again until all the oogie bits grow out.

Which is rather interesting, since I was coloring over greys, so in the growing out (now in its fourth month), it looks as though I've only just started to go grey. The bits closest to my scalp do not feel oogie. That means that not coloring it is the right choice. However, it will take at least a year before it's grown out to a signficant length where most of the hair will be soft again and not oogie.

I am a vain woman, though, and I don't like the thought of looking my actual age, which is what having all these silver threads might mean. Then again, how much longer could I actually go on coloring my hair to its natural shade of black before I suddenly became an old woman with desperate, puffy black hair? I used to stare at these women in horrified fascination -- who did they think they were kidding, anyway? Now I have to hope that I won't become one of them! Aieee!

I might get to go to E3 this year as a worker bee. Last year, I just went up for a day's worth of exploration. This time, I might get to be one of those awesome booth babes with a headset microphone :)

Which would actually work out rather well, since I'm going to fly out of LAX on my freebie Hawaii plane tickets. If I'm there for a few days in a row, I might be able to grasp the transportation system and then use it to my advantage. We are all about taking advantage! I probably won't be in LA Friday night, but I can catch the train back up there Saturday morning and from there, catch a new shuttle from Union Station direct to LAX. That will save me the trouble of driving to LA (or making Chris drive me).

The only problem I foresee is: if I'm working, when will I have time to scour the booths for phat loots? Aieee!

Returned from a trip to Atlanta for our fan faire. I had a very nice time and met lots of interesting folks (and caught up with a few I'd met last year). Matt failed in his attempts to have me drink myself senseless, though I did have two half-glasses of beer one night and a dirty girl scout sans cream last night.

While I was in Atlanta, my sister called to let me know that our Uncle Bob had passed away. She's written a very nice explanation of how he became our uncle and how his family and ours intertwined over the years.

I remember how my mother would tell me that I needed to stay in Uncle Bob's good graces because whenever I disappointed her, "he" threatened to write me out of his will (which I doubt I was ever in to begin with, but perhaps mom thought it would be a useful threat). The last time I saw him, he (drunk) insulted my mother to her face at a restaurant and I walked out on the dinner party in disgust. I wish I remembered something better. I know he had helped my mom out financially quite a lot after my father left us. But he wasn't a fatherly figure to me. My fatherly uncle was our Uncle El, who died a few years ago in a boating accident.

Patrick (Uncle Bob's son) is around my age, so we played together frequently until our moms had their falling out. I have very many fond memories of spending time with Patrick (well, except that one time when I got so vexed with him I literally wanted to strangle him). We'd go around his neighborhood on New Year's Day to pick up unpopped fire crackers so we could scrape out the gunpowder and blow up things (heh). Patrick tried to teach me how to ride a skateboard and I have the scars to prove it. We would share Hershey's bars, splitting them carefully so that I could have the "Hers" and he could have the "hey's." No one ever explained to me at the time why I couldn't go over to Patrick's house any longer. The last time I saw Patrick was at my high school graduation party because I wanted him to come and mom let me invite him.

I'm sorry that Uncle Bob died, but it's so remote to me that I don't know how I honestly feel. I really wish my last memory of him was something more positive.

Chris picked up his car tonight. It costs more to insure than ye old Subaru, but on the other hand, it has a lot more coverage on it...which we hopefully will never need.

To assist in the funding, I've decided to eliminate the frivolous cable channels. We'll be dumbing down to the local stations next week and saving about half the car payment that way. Alas, no more Alton Brown. Good-bye, Samantha Brown. Farewell, Sherlock Holmes. Unless y'all come to PBS, I will not see you guys for at least 36 months.

On the somewhat bright side, the local PBS station is carrying a version of Antiques Roadshow UK. The show is condensed into 30 minutes, but at least they carry different years than I've already seen.