offbalance | A new home at the end of the world

Where have I been all day? Well, it would appear that I now am the proud owner of a new HP work machine, so you figure it out. You're clever enough.

Ahaha! Harry Packard rides again!
(for those of you unfamiliar, that was my nickname for the HP computer I had before I got my new Dell, Hermione. I doubt many people here at my company will appreciate the HP joke, but what the hell. Here I am back with the Sorcerer's Mouse, the Printer of Azkabahn, the C:/Drive of Secrets, etc.)

Oh, give me a break. It's been a long day and I'm updating from the WEB of all places.

See, there's a problem with this shiny new Pentium 4-with-XP machine. They're trying to get it set up so I can actually use it to do WORK stuff, only it's taking a very very very long time. I tried to open a work-related program, and nearly crashed the thing. *sigh* so I guess I'll just have to sit on IE until 5. Oh well.

Normally I'd be VERY excited about that, but I'm supposed to meet Evan, Marisa & some others at 7 back in Brooklyn so that we can all go to dinner at Blue Ribbon Sushi tonight, to take advantage of the dine-in-brooklyn deal AND celebrate Marisa's bday. Argh. These things never seem to happen when you want them to. Still, I'm excited about Blue Ribbon - they're supposed to be excellent, and I love sushi!

I just realized that I'm dressed like Buffy in "Once more with Feeling," during the "Life's a Show" number. Unintentionally. And I didn't realize this until AFTER I spent my trip in listening to the soundtrack. Sometimes I even surprise myself. But on the subject of fire...

I had lunch with Catherine and Stacey earlier today. They're both doing well, although lunch turned into an adventure. We were in this little pocket park that's across from my office, enjoying the nice weather and all that, when Catherine decided that she wanted a cigarette (as smokers so often do). So she lights it, waves the match out (or so she thought), and throws it in the paper bag that had the remnants of her lunch within it.

Now class, what do we get when we add a hot match to paper?

So the bag caught FIRE. This is while Stacey was on the phone talking to Catherine's mother (long story), so I had to do the following:

1. Not panic.
2. Alert Catherine that there were large flames near her arm, face and head.
3. Remove flaming thing from vicinity of people without burning self.
4. Not shout fire, as I did not feature being thrown OUT of said park, or alerting Catherine's mother to the insanity.
5. Extinguish burning object by stamping it a lot.

I'm happy to report that all of these objectives were accomplished successfully. But still, it made for an exciting few moments. I just hope burnt brown paper bag smell is compatible with Chanel Cristalle, or I'm going to smell very weird.

So anyway, that's all I have to tell you. Oh, and I have plans to go to Mexicana Mama tomorrow with