Sister: That’s retarded.
Me: I prefer to call it “awesome.”
Sister: You must be borderline awesome.

On a whim, I bought the first two volumes of Strawberry 100% a while back, and I finished reading the second one last night. Aside from being typical male fantasy (i.e. somewhat-generic male surrounded by beautiful girls), it struck me of a modern-day Kimagure Orange Road. Guy (albeit with no psychic powers) has two girls in his life—the popular one who’s his girlfriend, and the quiet, *cough*superior*cough*, friend—and can’t choose between them.

And then, at the end of the second volume, the romantic triangle seems mostly resolved. And then and then, a third girl shows up.

Cut.

Further detail: this manga has a total of 19 volumes. Worried that the series would become a “girl of the week” affair, I read up on it on Wikipedia. Apparently they turn off the new-girl faucet after there are a total of four girls involved. (A love pentagram pentagon is cool, right?) And then I spoiled myself.

In Bizarro Kimagure Orange Road, Kyosuke ends up with Hikaru. Madoka is right next to you, you goddamn idiot!

Suffice to say, I’m not sure what to think of the series right now.

…

In unrelated end-of-high-school news, I recently heard that the second of my two perpetual high-school crushes has gotten married. Woo.

My nose has been… sub-optimal, lately. I’ve been congested beyond the influence of pseudo-pseudaphedrine for the last couple weeks, and in the last couple days it’s started running a bit.

Then, this evening, I started smelling things in the environment that simply weren’t there. Earlier it was skunk (ew). Now? Popcorn.

My boss, who’s a bit younger than me, wanders around to see if I’m staying late. Specifically, she asks if she can “leave like a ninja.”

I size her up, and then tell her that she doesn’t have the skills to be a ninja. There’s a guffaw from the peanut gallery.

She, in turn, tells a story about a time when she and a friend decided to be ninjas and spy on a mutual friend, despite wearing white sweaters. My head hits the desk at the mention of their outfits.

She leaves a few minutes later, and the security system beeps as she opens the door—as it does every time the door is opened. I comment to my cubicle-neighbor, See? She didn’t leave like a ninja.

I finally took the time, this evening, to figure out—whereby I mean “just barely grasp”—Movable Type 4’s new template system. I then took the next step (!) and spent some time getting this blog set up properly. Things should no longer look extremely ghetto, and comments have returned. Exciting!

The most fun I had, in case you were wondering, was when I was forced to debug some bundled JavaScript code to allow the comments form to appear. (The second-most fun I had was when I was forced to figure out why the comment form wouldn’t display.)

Earlier this week I was (finally!) able to copy my email from the old server to the new one, so my server move is all but complete. My final task is to determine why I get random errors when securely checking my email… and though I get these errors, I still get my email just fine. Weird.

This server migration may well be the first thing I actually finish in the last couple months. Daaaaaaaaaaamn.

HOLY SHIT ginormous spider against the wall a foot away from my bed.

I’m not big on killing things, really. But damn damn damn do huge spiders that invade my living space need to die. My conundrum, however, is that the only thing that rivals my hatred of medium-plus-sized indoor spiders is having to kill them. The entire experience is a losing one, no matter what I do; I get chills up my spine either way.

Historically I’d get around this by letting my sister discover the spider, freak out, and get my dad to kill it. It’s more socially acceptable for females to behave in this way, it seems. My backup plan has been to vacuum them up (normally, not with tools—the idea being that the brush should do the job that I really, really don’t like doing), though Marin’s always hated that idea.

Those options were not viable tonight, as I no longer live with my family, and vacuuming at 2 am isn’t exactly de rigueur in an apartment building. Plus the fucker is literally a foot away from my bed (have I mentioned that?), so feigning ignorance and going on with life is just asking for trouble.

I’ve read that some spiders can bloody jump. ZOMG. That knowledge just makes everything worse—some things I am happier not knowing.

So I’m left sweating bullets, engaged in a cold war against this monstrous creature. He doesn’t bloody move, no matter what I do to try and spook him; perhaps he knows that the corner against the wall is more-or-less a safe zone.

Or, at least it was—until I constructed a crude spear out of an unused tension rod, a paper towel, and a rubber band. Sucker never saw it coming, though I sure as hell didn’t like doing it. Chills, man. I hate that.

I then figured I might as well vacuum the carcass up (tools being quieter than the regular vacuum, and the process taking all of three seconds)… so my room is now mine again. For the moment.

…

But, yeah. I’m pretty much a wuss when it comes to killing things.

This is the most awesome idea, ever.