Lobster Stuffed With Tacos

New Job!

jmjoyce — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:47:51 GMT

I got a new job, woohoo! Starting next month I'll be doing tech support for Comcast.

Happy 1234567890 Day!

jmjoyce — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:11:39 GMT

I'm a little late, it was half an hour ago (6:31:30 PM EST), but today is 1234567890 day! That means it's 1234567890 in Unix time, 1,234,567,890 seconds since Jan 1, 1970. Celebrate by doing something geeky! How am I celebrating? Well, I'm...um. Uh...I'm making this update in my LiveJournal! Yeah, that's it! Or if you're not inclined to be geeky, go have a beer or something. There are actually parties to celebrate this today. Have fun!

Hmm, it's on Friday the 13th. Bad omen?

How 'bout them Phillies?!?!

jmjoyce — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 02:27:22 GMT

WOOHOO!

The Phillies just won the World Series! I can't believe I got to see that again in my lifetime. I remember the 1980 series, with Tug McGraw windmilling his arms after the last out. That's one of the defining moments of my childhood. And I got to see it again, unbelievable! Hopefully, I'll get to see it again before I die (knock on wood).

iPhone post!

jmjoyce — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 15:09:36 GMT

I'm posting this from my iPhone!

That is all.

Posted via LiveJournal.app.

Counterbalance

jmjoyce — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 17:15:12 GMT

To counterbalance the other day's disturbing post, here's a picture of a kitty!

Awww.

Nosebleeds (Warning! Squick-worthy material ahead!)

jmjoyce — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 02:54:43 GMT

Wow, I haven't updated this in a while, mostly because I haven't really had much to write about until now. See, last week, I started having nosebleeds. These weren't your ordinary, everyday nosebleeds, they were four-alarm gushers. I called my parents in a panic at midnight to help me get one stopped. I thought I was going to die, either from blood loss or from some undiagnosed brain tumor. I kept flashing back to the X-Files episodes where Dana Scully developed a nasopharyngeal carcinoma and her nose would start bleeding out of the blue from time to time. Images of my untimely death flashed before my eyes.

The epistaxis kept on coming in the next few days. I had three on Sunday, one while I was at an Intel training event at Dave and Busters (a local sports bar chain in Philly) that caused my early exit from said event (with bloodstained clothes, no less). I took the next day off from work, since it wouldn't be good to start bleeding all over my customers. Yesterday, I scheduled an appointment with a local ear, nose and throat doctor in a snazzy new medical center down the street.

The doctor was nice and competent, but I started to bleed during the examination. He had to cauterize and pack my left nostril to stop the bleeding. He cauterized it with silver nitrate, which burned a bit, but wasn't too bad, since it was numbed. The packing was much worse. Basically, it involved inserting a five-inch long was of padding up my nose and inflating a small balloon inside the padding. I was writhing and squirming in pain, tears streaming out of my eyes. It would make quite an effective torture technique, I think. Afterwards, he explained that I have a deviated septum, which causes me to breathe more through my left nostril than my right. This causes more dryness and irritation in my left nostril, leading to nosebleeds. I expressed concerns about my blood pressure, which had historically been low, but it had been a while since I had it checked last. Fortunately, when he checked it, it was still low. That was a relief, at least, since I'm pretty overweight. The doctor said I was too young to be getting this, usually 80-year-old men get it. He didn't seem too concerned, though, since it's common with people with deviated septae.

Unfortunately, I have to keep the packing in 'til Monday, which means I can't really work (you try selling a printer with what looks like a bloody tampon sticking out of your nose and a tube taped to your face!) and it's pretty miserable. There's not a lot of pain, but it's just very uncomfortable. I hope this thing works, because I never want this to happen again. Just not a fun way to spend your week. On the good side, *Ahnuld voice* "It's naaht a tuumaah!"

NaNoWriMo update

jmjoyce — Sun, 04 Nov 2007 04:37:00 GMT

1545 words. I'm getting a bit worried, because I'm way off pace. I should be writing about 2000 words a day if I want to get 50000 by the end of the month. I can usually only get about an hour or so a day to write. I hope I can finish in time.

NaNoWriMo Update

jmjoyce — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 04:15:33 GMT

615 words and counting.

NaNoWriMo

jmjoyce — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 04:01:14 GMT

I've decided to try NaNoWriMo.

That is all.

Gee, what a surprise.

jmjoyce — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 03:47:35 GMT

What American accent do you have? Your Result: Philadelphia Your accent is as Philadelphian as a cheesesteak! If you're not from Philadelphia, then you're from someplace near there like south Jersey, Baltimore, or Wilmington. if you've ever journeyed to some far off place where people don't know that Philly has an accent, someone may have thought you talked a little weird even though they didn't have a clue what accent it was they heard.
The Northeast
The Midland
The Inland North
The South
Boston
The West
North Central
What American accent do you have? Take More Quizzes

Texas Hold 'em

jmjoyce — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 05:47:25 GMT

So I entered a Texas Hold'em tournament tonight, it was part of an Intel/Samsung/Vonage training/information event at Dave and Buster's. I had never played Hold'em before with actual real people, but I watch it whenever it's on TV, I find it utterly fascinating. Anyway, back to the tournament. There were 45 players in it, employees of computer retail stores like CompUSA, Best Buy, Circuit City and myself and another guy from my store, Micro Center. It was free, so it wasn't a big deal if any of us lost.

To my surprise, I built up a large chip stack early on, knocking out a few players along the way. I think I was probably the chip leader of the whole tournament at one point, although no one was really keeping track. It was exhilarating! At the first table, one of the players was very experienced, having once been a dealer in Atlantic City. I managed to survive that table and gradually the tables started to whittle down to a few. Having accomplished my goal by not being the first to bust out, the rest was just icing. My first big loss came when I was dealt a pair of sixes, which I raised. Everyone else except one player folded, and we went back and forth betting and raising at the flop, turn and river. At the end I had about a third of my chips in (I don't remember what was on the table) and I showed my sixes, then he showed a pair of sevens! A big chunk of my stack gone. Shortly after that, I found myself at the final table!

I had another bad beat when I was dealt a pair of jacks, a huge hand. An ace and a queen (and something else, I forget what it was) came on the flop, another ace on the river. I went all in. The only other player left in the hand called me and turned over a queen-seven! That was the second time I had been beaten by a hand only slightly better than mine. I didn't last long after that, the blinds killed me. The last hand was a $400 blind and I only had $1050 left, so I just went all-in in the dark, before I even saw my cards. I picked up a 6-2 offsuit, a horrible hand, and went out in fourth place. Still, not bad for my first live tournament! I won a goodie bag containing a t-shirt, movie tickets and a Wawa gift card. The winner won an Intel motherboard and processor. It wasn't so bad, since I had just built a new computer and didn't really need a new one. The man who won was in his sixties and was a very good player, he had a huge chip lead most of the time I played with him. Amusingly, he constantly repeated that he had to go home and was very tired, but he kept winning and winning. I hope Intel does this again sometime, it was a blast. And maybe I'll swing by Atlantic City sometime and see how good I really am. Who knows, it could be a new career (yeah right).

Update

jmjoyce — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 11:08:08 GMT

Today's my birthday, woohoo! I'm 33 today. God, I'm old. My car died a couple days ago, nice present. :P Since I broke my ankle and couldn't drive, it had been sitting unused for a month, so I guess the battery died. It was working fine on Friday and I got to work, but on Saturday, it wouldn't start when I went to get gas at lunch. I had to get a jumpstart from the gas station attendant. I managed to get it started when I left work, but on the way home the battery died a slow death until the car died completely. I had to pull over onto a side street. My dad put a different battery in it, but he couldn't get it started. So today, I called AAA and had it towed to a shop to get it looked at. The guy who towed it was able to start it, however, after disabling the car alarm. As I type it's in the shop, getting looked at and getting an oil change. I hope it's not too serious or expensive.

I got the boot off my ankle last week, so that's a nice birthday present. The doctor said the x-rays looked fine, so I can drive again (if I had a car, that is.) He gave me a smaller brace to wear and put me on physical therapy for another 6 weeks. It's going pretty good so far, my ankle's getting stronger.

In other news, I got a promotion at work! Well, sort of a promotion. I transferred into the peripherals department, so I'm selling printers, routers, motherboards and processors, cameras, etc. I used to be in general sales, which was software, cables and accessories. I get a higher commission percentage and I'm selling higher-priced products, so I should get more money. However, my product knowledge is sorely lacking right now, so I have to do a lot of research and training. I know enough to get by, mostly, but I don't know much about cameras or PDAs yet and I don't know specific details on a lot of products.It's going to take a while, but I'll get there eventually.

I think I'll buy myself an iPod to celebrate. :)

Ankle update

jmjoyce — Thu, 16 Feb 2006 16:00:01 GMT

Well, it's official, my ankle has hairline fractures in two places. I went to an orthopedist yesterday and got the bad news. They fitted me with a boot to immobilize my akle (which is a big honkin' thing that looks like a ski boot) and said it would take 3-4 weeks to heal. And no driving. However, I can go back to work whenever, so that's good. My mom volunteered to drive me to work (the woman is a saint) and has been taking care of me the last few days. I can get around pretty well without crutches, but I'm hobbling around at half my normal rate.

This is my first ever broken bone, although I may have broken my right pinky toe when I was younger. I never heard definitively about that one, but considering how hard I stubbed it an how much it hurt, it must have broken. They're hairline fractures, one on the fibula and one on the tibia, and the bones are in alignment, so it shouldn't take long for them to heal, 3-4 weeks vs. the typical 6 weeks for a more severe break. There's not much pain, but I'm taking ibuprofen regularly to keep the swelling down. Hopefully I'll be up and running again (okay, maybe not running) in a month or so. Here's hoping, anyway.

Ow! Then WOOHOO! Then ow.

jmjoyce — Tue, 14 Feb 2006 08:55:39 GMT

I went to the Villanova-UConn game at the Wachovia Center last night, it was an awesome game with 'Nova beating #1-ranked UConn 69-64. The students mobbed the floor at the end of the game. I took my dad to the game, since I had gotten him tickets for his 64th birthday. It turned out to be quite the present. It was a great game, which partially made up for my possibly breaking my ankle in the parking lot before the game.

The lot we parked in was a sheet of unsalted ice and I slipped and fell as I was walking toward the stadium. I fell over backwards and my ankle got caught underneath. I managed to hobble to the stadium to their first aid center, where I got ice and a bandage, then I hobbled to my seat. The right side of my ankle is swollen and hurts when I move it of put weight on it, so I have it bandaged, iced and elevated now. I have a doctor's appointment later tonight, so I'll see what they say. Oh well.

It's just as I thought.

jmjoyce — Tue, 17 Jan 2006 08:31:48 GMT

Spelling Nazi
You scored 97 Spelling smarts!

Okay so you've either cheated, or you know all the vocabulary rules by
now. "I before E, except after c." bla bla bla. Great job. You know how
to spell, and you might be a bit anal retentive about it too. Not a bad
thing mind you, but I get picked on for it. An answer key is what
you're after? http://quizanswerkey.blogspot.com/

My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 71% on Spelling smarts

Link: The Everyday Spelling Test written by charlifeathers on Ok Cupid, home of the 32-Type Dating Test

I am an extremely good speller. It's one of the few things I pride myself on. I came in second place in my middle school spelling bee in 7th grade and I still remember the word I missed. I spelled "notarize" as "notorize". I will never, ever make that mistake again. If I see a word and read it a few times, its spelling just get stuck in my head and is burned there forever, I can't explain it.

I'd like to know the word I missed on the quiz. It was probably the name of the incense I'd never heard of before. Oh well.

CoH/CoV signing with Statesman! (And kitty update)

jmjoyce — Thu, 10 Nov 2005 20:30:22 GMT

Today I went to the City of heroes comic book signing with Jack Emmert, AKA Statesman, lead developer of City of Heroes and City of Villains. David Nakayama, the artist on the CoH comic was also there to sign and make sketches. It was a great event, lots of fun. I got to meet other players and creators, had some good discussions. Plus, I discovered that Jack Emmert used to work at the comic store where the signing was held! It was in the Showcase Comics in Bryn Mawr, probably the best store in the Philly area. Door prizes were handed out, some raffled off, some as prizes in a trivia competition where States made up questions on the spot about various topics (comics, movies, TV, etc.). I won a CoH novel and a limited edition CoH. One question was about the Incredibles, "Who was the voice of Syndrome?" (Jason Lee) and the other was about the Simpsons, "What power did Bart gain in one episode?" (Stretching). It was fascinating watching the artist, people were getting sketches done of their CoH/CoV characters. I always love watching a talented artist draw, it's amazing the way the art slowly takes shape.

In other news, I got my kitty back! Kola's leg is pretty much completely healed and she's back in my condo, running around like nothing ever happened. We had a scare there for a while because her leg became infected underneath her cast. She almost lost the leg, but the vet put her on antibiotics and took the cast completely off. She stayed at my parents' house for a while, confined to the bathroom while she recuperated, and eventually made a nearly full recovery! She seems okay, but I don't know if she'll ever get back to 100%. She used to be able to jump about five feet straight up, but that seems unlikely now. Oh well, I'm just happy that she's back to normal!

jmjoyce — Thu, 25 Aug 2005 18:19:20 GMT

Modern, Cool Nerd
60 % Nerd, 52% Geek, 34% Dork

For The Record:

A Nerd is someone who is passionate about learning/being smart/academia.
A Geek is someone who is passionate about some particular area or subject, often an obscure or difficult one.
A Dork is someone who has difficulty with common social expectations/interactions.

You scored better than half in Nerd and Geek, earning you the title of: Modern, Cool Nerd.

Nerds didn't use to be cool, but in the 90's that all changed. It used
to be that, if you were a computer expert, you had to wear plaid or a
pocket protector or suspenders or something that announced to the world
that you couldn't quite fit in. Not anymore. Now, the intelligent and
geeky have eked out for themselves a modicum of respect at the very
least, and "geek is chic." The Modern, Cool Nerd is intelligent,
knowledgable and always the person to call in a crisis (needing
computer advice/an arcane bit of trivia knowledge). They are the one
you want as your lifeline in Who Wants to Be a Millionaire (or the one
up there, winning the million bucks)!

Congratulations!

Also, you might want to check out some of my other tests if you're interested in either of the following:

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Professional Wrestling

My test tracked 3 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 56% on nerdiness
You scored higher than 61% on geekosity
You scored higher than 56% on dork points

Link: The Nerd? Geek? or Dork? Test written by donathos on Ok Cupid

Cat-astrophe

jmjoyce — Thu, 21 Jul 2005 21:44:06 GMT

Last night, my cat, Kola, fell out of a window and broke her leg. It was around 1:30 AM and I was online, MUSHing. Kola was sitting on the windowsill with the window open and the screen closed. However, she had pulled the screen out of the frame and either jumped or fell out of the window. Fortunately, I'm on the first floor so it wasn't a long fall, but it's still about ten feet from the windowsill to the ground. I ran outside and found her hiding under a bush outside my condo. She practically jumped into my arms when I called for her. She was terrified as I carried her in and when I got to my door, she started trying to jump out of my arms. I put her down and she suddenly raced down the hall, yowling loudly. That was when I saw that she was limping badly on her back left leg. I managed to catch her again and brought her inside. I wasn't sure whether to take her to the vet then, so I stayed up with her for a bit, but eventually I decided to get some sleep and take her in the morning, since I had to work the next day.

In the morning I took her to the vet, but being an idiot, I took her to her old vet 20 minutes away instead of the one right down the street that I hadn't been to before. They had to sedate her to take x-rays, since she was extremely frightened and traumatized by the injury, the car ride in the cat carrier (which she hates vehemently) and the sudden influx of strangers. The x-rays showed a badly fractured ankle, which was bad news, since it would be easier for her to heal a break in the middle of the leg bone. Kola would need surgery for the leg to heal properly and for her to regain full mobility, according to the vet. Surgery will probably run $1000 or more. The vet bills today alone were over $400. So after consulting with my parents, we're going to keep a splint on the leg or cast it and see how well it heals. I'm not too pleased with that prospect, since it may mean that she won't heal properly and might not regain full mobility, but I can't really afford the alternative. So now Kola is back home and resting, wearing a drug patch for the pain and wrapped with a shocking pink splint and bandage. Poor thing. I guess I'll just have to hope that her leg heals properly without surgery. I don't know what else I can do.

Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!

jmjoyce — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 11:42:45 GMT

Bobby Abreu won he home run derby! Woohoo! He hit *24* in the first round, incredible! 41 total, unbelievable! He's the first Phillie in a looong time to win it, if ever. Maybe Mike Schmidt, my all-time favorite Phillie, won it once, I forget. But man, what a performance!

Now if he could only hit that many in the regular season...

Kung Fu Hustle

jmjoyce — Mon, 25 Apr 2005 19:56:08 GMT

I saw Kung Fu Hustle Saturday night. It was so good that I had to pee real bad about halfway through it but I held it in because I didn't want to miss anything.

I'm back!

jmjoyce — Mon, 28 Feb 2005 09:04:24 GMT

To quote Bender, I'm back, baby! RL ate the last few months of my life, complicated by a move and other things. I'm now living in a condo in Newtown Square, PA, and now with cable modem access! Woo! The main reason I've been offline so long is that I never bothered to put in a phone line, so I didn't even have dialup access. Well, I should say that the main reason is that I'm a lazy procrastinator and leave it at that. Everything else is excuses, really. I still have unpacked boxes scattered about the place. Most are books, but I'm getting my other bookcase from home, so I should have the rest of them unpacked soon. It reminds me of the scene in The Incredibles when Elastigirl calls Mr. Incredible to tell him she can finally call the place home three months after they moved in because the last box is finally unpacked. So last week I finally got off my ass and called Comcast, so now I have cable TV and Internet access. It's such a relief to have after so many years of dialup, although it costs a pretty penny. The other thing causing delays is my car, which I still haven't fixed the damage to from my accident detailed in the last entry (notice a pattern here?). Also, it's having problems starting now and is in the shop as I type. At first I thought it was the battery, so I got a new one, but the problem remained, so it must be the starter. Anyway, it's being fixed now. Hopefully, my online life will catch up to my real life soon and get back on track.

Crash!

jmjoyce — Mon, 20 Dec 2004 19:41:02 GMT

Got into an accident last night. I was exiting the parking lot at work and slid down an ice-coated hill into a stopped car at a traffic light at the bottom of the hill. I couldn't brake or steer, just zipped straight down the hill. I managed to honk the horn, but it was too late for the other car to get out of the way. We all pulled around the corner so no one else would hit us, then exchanged insurance information. It so happened that one of the people in the other car was a new employee who just started working with me. Fortunately, he's a nice guy. His wife/girlfriend/SO/whatever was upset, understandably, since her car is a brand new Nissan Altima, but she wasn't mad at me. The plastic section of my front bumper was cracked and broken, the front left turn signal doesn't work, and the right side of the rest of the bumper is pushed in about an inch, but aside from that, there's no significant damage I can see. The other car has body damage to the rear end, nothing major, but I'm sure it'll be very expensive to fix. I'm not hurt and neither were they, at least not at the time of the accident. However, whiplash doesn't always manifest right away, so I'll have to check and see if they're okay later. I's actually fortunate that they were at the bottom of the hill, because I probably would have slid right out onto a busy street and possibly had a much worse accident. There were many accidents last night, since the temperature fell dramatically and the roads were a sheet of ice everywhere. There was a huge pileup in Western Pennsylvania last night, so it could've been worse.

Of course, fifteen minutes after the accident, salt trucks arrived to salt the parking lot. Just my luck.

Turkey Day etc.

jmjoyce — Wed, 24 Nov 2004 21:13:38 GMT

Happy Thanksgiving, everybody! Gorge on turkey 'til you pass out from tryptophane overdose.

I just finished Skinny Legs and All by Tom Robbins, excellent book, just as relevant, even moreso, today as it was when it was written. I kept seeing resonances with the current administration and the current situation in the Middle East. I know there are a lot of Robbins fans out there, like Bingo and Whirl. And there was Conch Shell on TooMUSH, whose alternate identity/ies escape me at the moment. Anyway, excellent book, I recommend it for all humans on planet Earth that understand English.

Friday is Black Friday. 10 hours worth of retail hell for me. Have pity.

New Title!

jmjoyce — Wed, 10 Nov 2004 16:13:29 GMT

Homer, Marge, Moe and Moe's girlfriend are in The Gilded Truffle, Springfield's fanciest restaurant and Moe is hemorrhaging cash trying to impress said girlfriend:

Moe: I'll have your most expensive food stuffed with your second most expensive.

Waiter: Very good, sir. Lobster, stuffed with tacos.

Vacation, all I ever wanted!

jmjoyce — Mon, 08 Nov 2004 20:43:55 GMT

So today was the first day of my vacation, such as it is. I got in just under the wire, since I'm not allowed to take a vacation after the 15th due to the holidays. I think I'd go insane if I had to go through Black Friday and Christmas shopping without some time off. I'm not planning to go anywhere, so I'll probably spend most of it house-hunting, like I spent most of today doing. That's right, I'm buying a house! Well, probably a condo. It'll be tough, since there are slim pickings in the area. I have a loan, but I have to get a place in Delaware County to be eligible for it. I'm looking for something in the $70-80K range, of which there are few. Apparently investors snap up all the low-end properties to fix up and resell, or so my real estate agent tells me. It's nice to have relatives in the real estate business, my mom is in conveyancing and my brother-in-law does house inspections. I figure that puts me ahead in the game. :) Hopefully I can get a place closer to work, but work is on the Main Line and Main Line real estate is outrageously expensive. I suppose I'll have to compromise somehow.

Just got back from playing volleyball. Volleyball is my favorite sport, I play twice a week if work doesn't intervene. I've been playing since I was 14, when I played for a Junior USVBA (now known as USAV) team. I mostly sat on the bench , since everyone else on the team was better than me, but I got in a few games. It's great exercise, but now I'm sore all over. Need to get into shape.

You may have noticed I have a new icon. That's Mr. White from Reservoir Dogs, played by Harvey Keitel. Mr. White is the name of my lounge puppet on GarouMUSH that I've had for the past, oh, ten years or so. I thought he'd make an appropriate icon. I'll get some pictures of myself or one of my cats up there sometime.