(no subject)

I've not been sleeping well. Maybe it's the heat.

That's right, the heat. Those of you not in the Southern California may not be aware that we're in the middle of an extreme heat wave, with highs in the eighties in many areas. Even for Los Angeles, that's unseasonably warm. And with all this heat, I am getting very, very worried about my upcoming visit to Providence and Boston. I mean, it's slightly above freezing over there. What was I thinking? I'm definitely going to need to buy a few warm shirts before i leave.

Anyway, for the past few days, I've been waking up for no reason at about 3 p.m., after only four hours of sleep. I've had mixed results trying to fall back asleep, sometimes succeeding quickly, sometimes being delayed over an hour. The choppiness of my sleep has led to some strange, but extremely hard to remember dreams. All I can remember from yesterday's was that I was in another country, which I assume was Israel since I met orenr's family. At some point I was also driving a truck.

What a difference a preposition makes.

Seen today:

Children should not be allowed to play or have access to plastic bags.


SunNYTX: 28. That's an awfully obscure way to clue 52A.

This Entry Intentionally Left Blank.

On New Year's Eve, wjukknibs, his brother, K., and D. came over to celebrate. Bartok got caught in traffic and (understandably) turned back. The Femme Fatale Four of cruciverbalist, senescence, estivalfiend and megustamayer decided not to come either.

Anyway, D. and I played a game of Scrabble. The game was moving pretty smoothly for me, especially after the rocky game I had played only two nights earlier. However, early on in the game, D. blew me away be revealing her hand to have the Q, the Z and both blanks, allowing her to play the uber cool word QUIZzeR on a double word score, ending up with a total play score of 103. That hurt.

I came close to catching up to her, but after a while it was clear that my inability to place a bingo (I was unable to capitalize on my best rack, MANDATR) would lead me to a sound defeat. Then, D. drew a blank.

Now, if you've been paying attention, you'll recall that D. used both blanks in her 103-point play. Or so she thought. Making one of the classic Scrabble blunders, she had mistaken an upside-down tile for a blank. She had actually played QUIZzGR. Suddenly, I had the lead. And quite a lot of fodder for teasing.

Later, we played Fluxx and Apples to Apples. wjukknibs brought me alcohol for which I need to repay him. Notably, he brought some good, hard-to-find-in-America beer and a tasty hard cider, of which we partook.

Later than later, after the celebrants had left, my still, slightly sotted senses were sent reeling by the aforementioned Femme Fatales, who had gathered at senescence's house where they watched Lord of the Rings and taunted me with polls. O! Why must the women of beauty always be so cruel!

Anyway, it's time to leave work and, hence, boredom.

WedLATX: 9:30. Cute theme. ThuLATX: 10:30. Some sketchy bits in this one. FriLATX: 10. 35A seems so obvious, I'm surprised I haven't seen it before. SatLATX: 19. SunLATX: 18. At first, I was wondering why the LA puzzles seemed so hard. I'd forgotten I'd started midweek.