I’ve had a bit of a headache the past couple of days and it’s partially self-inflicted. At the very least, yesterday it was my own fault due mostly to dehydration. It’s easy to accomplish. First, leave the gym and get on Tri-Met (the local bus) without properly rehydrating. Then go to the Beer and Slider event on the first day of the year it hits 90°F in a parking lot with no shade. Eat a bunch of sliders and drink a bunch of beer tasters. Then head home but wait for the bus in a shelter with no shade, with a seat that’s so hot you can’t use it, in the direct sunlight. Oh, and I suppose I started it all out by not being able to sleep much the night before, so I ended the afternoon with a short 2 1/2 hour nap.

Today was much less personal sabotage. I had a two hour phone call helping a friend remotely upgrade her computer software, only to find that my own laptop was acting up again. I took it to the Apple Store and the diagnostics showed that the battery failed a thermal test. So that means three trips to the Apple Store to fix it: one to diagnose and order parts, one to drop off the laptop once the parts are in, and one to pick up the laptop. And they still refuse to validate parking if you haven’t spent $50, at least not without a bit of drama. Sheesh.

I really wonder what it is about the human body where food isn’t processed into something that makes more sense than just gas. Of course, if it’s lighter-than-air gas, maybe it’ll make me more floaty and able to crank out more pullups. Most likely, though, it’ll just limit the amount of human contact I get in a day.

I did figure out some of the annoyances of yesterday. Well, at least the top three. I got some money off of my DirecTV bill, figured out why Bank of America was charging me for my account (their mistake), and successfully used the LivingSocial coupon that was about to expire. And, found out just how tasty the food at Limo Peruvian Restaurant was. They had run out of empanadas so that’s all I wanted to eat, but they talked me into ceviche and other things I can’t recall the names of. I did eat a lot of potatoes, though. I suppose there were other things I needed to do, but work’s actually gotten busy.

Now that I think of it, the only other thing that was on my short list was to get my hair cut. I think they overdid it this time.

Well, at least it’s the weekend.

It just feels like I’m on a downhill slide lately. Sure, my computer was repaired with little trouble, but why did it have to break in the first place? Why is Bank of America starting to charge me $25/month on my account? Why will DirecTV give my buddy a $20 discount but not me? Why does my arm hurt so much lately? Why are they filming so late next door? Why do I keep buying Groupons if I’m not going to use them? Why would they let me order a Prius in February if they don’t intend on ever getting me the car? Why am I driving so poorly lately?

I know the answer to most of these questions and they really don’t mean all that much but it kind of adds up. I think I need a vacation, but from what? And will anything change when I come back?

So I did recognize one actor on the shoot next door, Jaime Ray Newman, or Tess Fontana from Eureka. I tried to point this out to some of my fellow gawkers, but I was the only one geeky enough to watch SyFy shows. She looked tall and willowy on my TV, but it turns out she’s tiny. IMDB says she’s 5’4″ but I bet she’s shorter than that. I thought it looked like her but had to confirm with the Location Manager because she looked like she was in her early 20’s and not her early 30’s like I thought she was. She also had something that looked like an iPhone 3. Weird.

Most of the people on set were constantly texting. TV/Film crews appear to be a weird bunch. My sister, who has worked in the office for a movie (and even had a line in Come See the Paradise agrees with my observation. One of my goals in life is to get a speaking credit in a movie so I can see how many degrees of Kevin Bacon I am from my sister. Probably not something I’ll ever cross off my bucket list, but they always say I should have goals.

Not sure how I’ll pull that off. I stayed up way too late yesterday watching them film Grimm in the neighborhood. Interior scenes next door and exterior scenes four houses down. The trucks and the crew were making enough noise that I knew I would be able to sleep through it so I just stood around watching them from 8PM to about 12:30AM. So today I should get some sleep to make up for it but I just got my computer back and I’m catching up on stupid, stupid things like all the RSS news feeds I shouldn’t be reading. Or Facebook. Or Twitter. Or paying my bills. My MacBook Pro was only in the shop from Friday to Tuesday but it was crashing quite regularly for weeks before that. I’m behind on my geekery.

Also, got my Mac back. Thank goodness.

I actually had a few things I blew off today, besides the things on my much-ignored to do list. What I did try to do was get a brush cutter working so I could cut some of the weeds growing out of the curb across the street. I’ve never had any luck getting my co-worker’s Craftsman started so I thought I’d try the Stihl I have. The Stihl started with no problem but has bad rubber seals in the fuel line which means gasoline was pouring out of the bottom. I called around trying to get parts, but it’s probably 25 years old.

Anyway, I blew off a friend’s kid’s first birthday, but late in the day I was invited to a party by a guy I’ve known on the internet for a while but never met in person. It turns out that not only was I crashing the party, but he was as well. It was nice meeting him, though, and everyone was pretty friendly. I didn’t overstay my welcome, possibly because I was getting eaten alive by mosquitoes. I really haven’t seen that many mosquitoes this year because of the cold weather.

I suppose most of my accomplishments for the day are the ones I’d figure would be better in the wintertime: I took a couple of naps, finished a book, and watched some football. Not too bad.

I took my MacBook Pro in for repair and took the Portland Streetcar because it’s free this weekend. I should have just spent the money and took the bus or drove. The streetcar was crowded, slow, and a bug tried to fly up my nose. I even had to shove my way off the streetcar when I got downtown. What a mess.

I got to my appointed genius time early and had to wait, but they recognized all the symptoms, looked at the crash logs, and sent my laptop into the repair depot. We’ll see how long it takes to repair it.

After that it was time to take my sister to Slabtown Ribs for her birthday dinner. Funny thing is, I haven’t had ribs there in months. All of us had beef brisket and I had smoked sausage as well. I just wish they were open more often.

I was pretty sure there was something wrong with my computer since it kept giving me the Mac Grey Screen of Death at least once a day, but I thought reloading all the software was a good idea before I went looking for hardware problems. Since it was a good idea once, I did it a second time. I was even going to do it a third time until I finally decided that it was time to try checking hte hardware. I was going to try running the Apple Hardware Test when I got home from work but I didn’t need to. When I got home my Mac was beeping in triplets, which means the memory is dead. Or at least it’s really ailing. I got it to reboot but it gave me the GSOD quite soon afterwards. Maybe there’s a limit to how much pr0n you can download on a computer.

I also found out that they’re filming Grimm on my street next week. We can’t park on the street that night and the house next door is going to be used for filming from 8PM until 1AM. This is why I don’t like having the film/TV industry in my city. Let them film in frigging Vancouver, B.C. like everyone else. I don’t like having traffic diverted for some show I’m likely not going to watch. I don’t want all sorts of noise while I’m trying to sleep. Ah, well, what’s the use? Maybe I can fire up the wood chipper or something.

So while life is not really going my way, it is my sister’s birthday today. Happy Birthday Mariko!

The last two days I’ve been late to work and, surprisingly, I would have rather been at work than where I was. Yesterday I was getting my oil changed and the free shuttle was delayed because of an accident on the freeway. I was stuck in car dealership waiting room with a TV playing morning programs. Today I was at the dentist. And just to be clear, work hasn’t been going all that swimmingly either.

I spend most of my free time in front of my Mac and that’s been giving me fits as well. It’s still locking up about once a day and that’s not the most pleasant thing to deal with. Oh, and I’m not sleeping all that well either.

It’s like I need a vacation or something. I’d settle for a few days sleeping in, though. No need to get too greedy.

I think I did OK on my to-do list yesterday, even though it seemed a bit short. Spent a Groupon for running shoes, went to an MIT alumni picnic, and cut down some odd bush and a moss-covered apple tree. I’m never quite sure what my dad planted in the backyard or what his plan was to fill the yard with tree that grew into monstrosities in the thirty or forty years they’ve been in the ground but I’m pretty sure he’d be mad if he knew I was feeding them all to a wood chipper. He never did like disturbing the neighbors with the racket, either. But, on the other hand, I’m not too enamored of living in a dark mossy forest full of spiderwebs and English ivy. Plus it’s fun to run gas-powered tools like chainsaws and wood chippers. Some environmentalist I turned out to be, but this is a backyard, not a forest and my dad’s trees aren’t exactly native species. I wish I could have kept some of them but if they’re too close to the house or crowding each other for space, they have to go.

Oh, and my stupid computer keeps crashing. Dammit.

Well, it took me over a day, but I sort of backed up my Mac and moved some partitions around. Didn’t really delete or reload anything and I’m just pretending that doing nothing is going to help the situation. I guess I did repair the permissions or something. In any case, I’m back to having a computer and that just reminds me of all the things I need to catch up on. Like reading my twitter feed (not really useful) or paying my bills (better do that tonight). That’s just life.

My Mac is acting up, giving me the grey screen of death several times a day. It may be bad hardware or it may be my OS installation. I’m going to delete everything and start over tonight and that means HOURS of backing up my old computer.

So, not much else for me tonight except waiting for files to copy. Exciting times!