Translating makes me happy. This should be pretty obvious, considering it's both my job and a major hobby. If I had time, I would love to do even more translating for fun. I'd love to translate some little-known manga that's never going to come out in English, or a novel, or even just translate some songs I want to translate instead of just whatever people have requested. I'd love to put my Digimon encyclopedia back up (yes, all these years later) and start translating Digimon cards again. Maybe even do subs for some lesser-known dramas I loved (though that's got the added pain of having to do it by ear).

I just love translating. It's my thing, the one activity I love most and can do forever and ever and not get tired of it (I can get tired of the subject matter, of course, but not the act of translating). Before I learned Japanese (well, before I got proficient enough to start translating stuff), my thing was drawing (which will be another post). It pushes the buttons in the part of my brain that loves (and needs) repetitive activity. I've been translating professionally for over nine years. I've been doing my lyrics site for even longer. It's just not something I ever tire of.

When Bruce went back to get the mouse today, the price was back up to $80, so he got the keyboard and mouse combo instead, because then I don't have to have two separate connectors (plus the connector for the combo is one of those keydrive sized ones rather than the old clunky kind), but it's horrible. The mouse is slightly different and for some reason has really strong resistance on the scroll wheel, which is bad for my wrist, and while the ergo keyboard would take some getting used to to type really well, the real problem is that the spacebar clicks really loudly (and is resistant). It's driving me (and Bruce) crazy already.

So now we have to return it, plus no mouse for me. ;_;

I did get candy in the mail from glossing, though! Om nom nom! Thanks! :D

+ Just a few minutes ago I remembered to check the bank website and see if my deposit from Monday had gone in and it did, which meant I could pay off the credit card I'd been planning to pay off. We now have officially half as much debt as we had three months ago when I started translating these videos. I was really not thrilled when I started working for this guy and was getting such a low rate to translate the video games, but I'm glad I stuck with it, because otherwise I wouldn't have been working for him when the videos came along and would not be getting paid an actually decent rate for work that isn't stressing me the fuck out.

- Having returned the ergonomic mouse and gone back to my old one, I think it really was making a difference, because my wrist has been hurting a lot since then. ;_;

+ When we returned it, we saw it had gone down in price $10, so Bruce is going to go down to Fry's tomorrow and buy another one.

-/+ We have appointments at Sears on Friday for eye exams. I'm not thrilled thinking of the amount of money new glasses for us both is going to cost (four pairs total, since we'll need sunglasses, too), but I know we really need them. I've been getting tension headaches a lot more often (almost daily, and sometimes multiple times a day) and have been having trouble focussing for quite some time, and I know Bruce is in the same position. Meh. Hopefully we can get some sort of deal on at least one or two pairs. I saw they have a sale, but it was really confusing as to what exactly the price is for.

You know what makes me happy? Decluttering. I am happy when I'm getting rid of stuff, and even happier when we're not buying a bunch of new junk to replace it.

I have had some packrat tendencies in the past, though I've always been pretty willing to get rid of stuff. Growing up, I'd always sell my toys at garage sales in order to have money to buy new ones, and I've never been the type to save school work or artwork (I do have some saved, but a lot has been thrown away over the years).

But I did have some compulsive habits, especially once Bruce moved out here and we started buying a lot more stuff. When I had my Digimon website, I bought everything Digimon I could find, and we were really obsessed with Pokemon and Beanie Babies for a while. Before I started selling stuff on eBay, I had over a thousand volumes of manga, and a couple years ago I finally did a big purge of all the books I didn't think I was ever going to read (or reread) and ended up donating about fifteen big bags to the library. I also used to compulsively collect Japanese music videos, even though I never, ever watched them (I had like 1500 videos, which I eventually uploaded to MegaUpload so I could ditch the ones on my hard drive and still feel like someone was getting some use out of them).

But I think I've broken the habit. I try not to buy anything now, though I do occasionally buy CDs and DVDs. I only buy books if I can't get them at the library. I resell the manga I buy as soon as I read it.

I feel good about having broken the desire to have things, even when the things don't do me any good (I don't reread, so having a collection of books or manga is not anything useful, but rather just a compulsive urge to have them). I love the feel of a house free from so much clutter. It still has some, but it just feels so much more spacious than it used to.

When I did the previous book purge, I kept a bunch that I really liked, but I think I'm going to go through again and get rid of everything except books I haven't read yet. Once I get a chance to go through them, I'll post a list here to see if anyone wants anything.

Today I'm happy about fresh produce. There is a neighborhood market near us that I usually tend to avoid, because it has pretty high prices for a lot of stuff, but it does have good prices on produce, and a good selection that looks and tastes much better than the stuff at the big supermarkets. Now that we've been trying to get out and walk more, we've been going there more often. (I like the farmers' market, too, of course, but it really isn't cheap, and it's also a problem in that I am usually not awake in the morning.)

Today we got three things of grapes, some giant peaches, some pluots, and they even had some rhubarb so we can finally make that pie Bruce has been wanting for months. The grapes were soooooo good. I ate a bunch as we walked home. They were big and crisp and juicy and tasted great. I just ate the rest of the first package just now.

I'm really thankful that we're at a place right now financially where we can afford to buy fruits and vegetables, because at least where we are, it's definitely a privilege. (If you're pinching pennies, spending a dollar on four boxes of macaroni and cheese, which will make enough to last a week, is a better deal than two peaches. What's healthier really can't be part of the equation.)

Today I'm happy about Johnny's. Johnny's Jimusho is a production company, founded by Japanese-American Johnny Kitagawa in the early '60s, whose purpose is to churn out as much cheesy boypop as possible. I will not lie. It is AWESOME.

I will now take you on a tour of my favorite Johnny's songs of the past thirty years. The fact that I was unable to pick fewer than a hundred favorites should clue you in as to just how happy they make me.

Also, be warned that while more recent groups can generally sing fairly decently (or at least try to have the ones who can sing do the bulk of it, like in SMAP), Japan does not prioritise singing ability in general. Good looks and cheerfulness/energy count for a lot more. But the songs are catchy! And a lot of the guys are really cute. :)

Anyway, if you're not familiar with Johnny's, the way the system works is that everyone comes in as juniors first. The juniors have become a bigger and bigger part of Johnny's over the years. Their main job used to be to dance behind the official groups, but now they act and sing and have variety shows of their own. Oh, and they're all over the magazines.

( Cut because omg 100 songs! So much rambling! )

Whew! The end! I'm too lazy to go to youtube and get links, but you should totally check them out over there, too. Live performances are especially fun with the crazy outfits they always wear, and the five bazillion juniors dancing behind them.

So on Friday the workers filled in the ditch. Partially. They made a nice cement gutter, but it only filled up about half the hole. There was still a gap of about a foot between the new cement and the street. Not sure how deep it was, but too deep to just drive over. Maybe ten inches.

Bruce had asked them to put a plate over it for the weekend, but they didn't, and we needed to go to Fry's this weekend to return our mice (yes, I gave up on the ergonomic mouse; I wasn't seeing an improvement and while I had got used to it and like the feel, I didn't really feel like that alone could justify a $50 mouse). So we poked around in the back yard and garage to try and find something to put over the ditch or fill it in or something. We had a bunch of boards, but they wouldn't hold the weight of the car. We thought of dirt, but did we really want to dig up the backyard and cart it out front, only to have to take it back again before the workers came on Monday?

Finally we came up with the idea of bricks and boards. We piled in the boards rather than using them to bridge the gap, and then put bricks in as well to fill up the rest of the space (we have brick planters all around the house and a lot of the bricks are loose, so we just took bricks off there). It was really dodgy-looking and I wanted to take a picture, but just as Bruce was getting the car out of the driveway...the workmen came! On a Saturday? Gah!

They were coming to fill the rest in with temporary cement. So we got the car out and then had to quickly get our boards and bricks out. But at least by the time we got home, the ditch was filled in and the cement was as dry as it's going to get (it still made a tire print, but they're either going to dig it up again or put gravel over it, so it doesn't matter), so we were able to get the car back in the driveway with no problem.

Today I love Yotsuba&!, an awesome and hilarious manga by Azuma Kiyohiko.

I discovered Yotsuba&! last year and fell instantly in love. It's so bizarre but in a very realistic way. Each chapter is a separate story about four-year-old Yotsuba and some new discovery of hers. Supporting cast includes her adoptive father, his friend, the three neighbor girls and their mom, and a couple friends of the neighbor girls.

I think Yotsuba may be one of the most realistic children I've ever seen in manga. She believes things unquestioningly, comes to all sorts of odd conclusions, has a large vocabulary that she doesn't necessarily understand fully, and cracks herself up with stupid jokes.

Here's an example from a chapter I'm reading now:

Dad: Do you know how they make milk, Yotsuba?

Yotsuba: *thinks* Cows...I think?

Dad: Cows, huh? What do they do with the cows?

Yotsuba: *thinks hard* Squeeze them.

Dad: ...The whole cow?

Yotsuba: I don't know! I don't know! >:0!

A few minutes later...

Yotsuba: Maybe milk coffee is from black cows?

Dad: Hmm, so then regular milk is from white cows?

Dad: What about strawberry milk? There's no such thing as red cows.

Yotsuba: That's blood! Cow blood!

Dad: That's kinda scary.

The one thing I hate about it is that it's a really fast read and new volumes are only published once every nine months or so. Today I just finally got vol. 7, though. Unfortunately not only the dollar shelves, but only $4.50, so still a good discount from buying new. (I think my love of Book Off will be another post!)

( Spoilers )

All right, I had a request to do some spn_j2_bigbang stuff. I read three and didn't get any recs and by then I really wanted something shorter, so I read a couple of old ones I had tagged on delicious for ages (I really like being able to reverse sort). And wow, the one rec I did find is one of those rare stories I'd rate higher than a 5+ if I could. So awesome.

Into His Hand by drvsilla 3/5
50,500 words. JR Ackles is a professional bullrider at the top of his game. He's got one thing on his mind: winning the championship belt buckle and the right to call himself the best in the world. His unwavering dedication and focus is finally put to the test in the form of JT Padalecki, an up-and-coming rider new to the professional ranks, who has his sights set on winning the PBR finals - and Jensen. Cowboys ride and get by on grit and tough determination - the question facing Jensen is if they have to do it alone.
( Reads sort of like a modern day, happy ending Brokeback Mountain. Interesting look at cowboys, but it never really hooked me. )

The Learning Curve at Wakefield High by aynslee 2/5 - Didn't finish
22,200 words. When Jared accepts the job at Wakefield High, he expects the usual problems: lazy students, meddlesome parents, and an air conditioner that barely functions in the Texas heat. But he doesn't expect his biggest problem, which comes in the form of his new boss - Principal Jensen Ackles.
( I love school AUs in theory, whether they're about students or teachers, but in practice they're often not my thing, so while I was hopeful when I bookmarked this, I'm not terribly surprised that I didn't end up finishing it. )

Receiver by dotfic 3/5
21,700 words. In the wake of the events of "Fresh Blood," Sam and Dean find a hunt: a family whose youngest child has a monster in his closet. The Winchesters know exactly how to deal with monsters, but this hunt is a little too familiar. Sam starts to unravel while Dean's show falters.
( Felt like it could be an episode...but one of those episodes I don't like quite as much. Too much emphasis on family/brothers and too little on horror. )

Skinning Schrodinger's Cat by lyra_wing 3/5
3500 words. Sam travels back in time to try and fix things.
( This is one of those rare fics that actually reads *better* after further canon, rather than getting jossed. )

My Mother Was a Tailor by traveller 5/5 Recommended
2800 words. She checks her lips in the bronze mirror, makes sure the red is even and not bleeding out at the edges; she makes a pout and gets a blurry kiss reflected back. She dabs a little perfume on the beauty mark on her cheekbone, wets her hands with the pitcher and smoothes her hair.
( Wow, this is so very, very cool. Love the writing, the atmosphere, the ambiguity. Should absolutely be read without spoilers. )

I saw this on snacky's journal and thought it would be a neat idea, assuming I can remember to post each day. XD The object is to post every day in August about something that makes you happy.

My first day is going to be about Flight of the Conchords. This morning I couldn't sleep, but was too tired to actually do anything so I figured I'd watch some of the stuff that's been piling up on my hard drive. It had been a while since I watched the show, and I'd forgotten just how hilarious it is.

The episode I watched had Jemaine trying to cheer Bret up by writing him a song (after asking if that would be gay, natch). The song goes along fairly normally for a while (normal for them, anyway), but ends up about how when Jemaine was lonely he'd put a wig on Bret while he slept and spooned with him, pretending he was a girl. XD But it's totally not gay, because he was pretending Brett was a girl. (Oh, what would we do without youtube? Here's a clip of it.)

I love the humor of the show. I love the ridiculousness of it. I love the songs (oh, the songs). I love Bret and Jemaine and Murray and Dave and Mel.

There was some great fic written for Yuletide last year, too.

Here's five songs I'm really into at the moment.

Amuro Namie's Do Me More and Sexy Girl are the only two new songs off her best of album Best Fiction. I love them so much, especially Do Me More (though listening to Sexy Girl now, I'm finding it hard to choose which is better).

Hitoto You's Hanamizuki is one I recently translated on request and got hooked on when I checked the song to do the romaji. It's really pretty. She's one of those artists I've heard of for ages but never actually listened to until now.

NEWS' Snow Express is another one I heard because I had a translation request. It's not an official release, just one they sing live, so unfortunately all I have is a rip from a concert video. I really, really hope they release it on CD eventually because it's so catchy. Maybe as a coupling to an upcoming Christmas-y single or on their next album. *crosses fingers* Listening to it got me on a NEWS kick and I remembered how much I love them (and not just because of Yamapi!). I may do a best of NEWS post sometime in the near future.

The Nields' When I Let You into My Closet is apparently the only English song on this list. Huh. Anyway, I've had this song for a while, but I totally forgot about it until the other day when I rediscovered it while going through iTunes.

So they've started doing work on our street again this week. I thought it was just going to be more sidewalk stuff, but apparently not. Monday they dug out a huge trench along our side of the street, about a foot or so wide. Fortunately they left it filled in at the driveways, so people could get in and out. However, on Wednesday they came and dug it out completely, leaving it like this.

A guy came up to the door and gave Bruce a temporary parking pass (our street (well, all of Santa Monica, I think) is permit parking only, and you have to buy a permit from the city so we never do, since we have only one car) as said to move the car if we needed to. Unfortunately Bruce didn't realise he meant move it right that minute, so he came inside and sat down, and soon heard them digging out the trench. Oops. Well, there are only four possible parking spots on the opposite side of the street anyway, and I'm sure they were all taken up, so it's not like there would have been a place to park anyway (maybe a few blocks away, but who wants that hassle).

Thankfully we didn't need to go anywhere yesterday or today (nowhere we couldn't walk, anyway), though we do want to go to Fry's this weekend and return Bruce's mouse (and maybe mine; I am still undecided), so Bruce is going to ask them tomorrow if they plan on filling it in tomorrow, and if not could they put a metal plate over it for the weekend, because hello? WE NEED TO USE OUR DRIVEWAY.

Apparently they're going to be putting in a whole new street at some point, too, which...yay? It needs it, but gah. Pain in the ass. It really doesn't help that our street is a cul de sac and also the one end that's open is very narrow (two cars can barely fit side by side; it makes me nervous if anyone else is coming the other direction, and a large truck would be impossible to pass), so it's very easy to get blocked in by workmen.

( Naruto )

( D.Gray-man )

It's here! It's finally here!

I haven't had much time to play with it, because I've got a ton of work today, but just poking around, there's a lot I like and a bit I don't like.

+ It's much easier for me to see unbundled tags when I'm trying to bundle. It now uses dark grey to mean in this bundle and grey to mean in another bundle. It used to be red for in this bundle and a red outline for in another bundle, which meant I was always missing stuff while looking through the list. Now it's very easy to see what's not bundled. (I would still like an easier way, like perhaps something when you create a tag asking you if you want to put it in a bundle.)

- Clicking on a tag to bundle it makes it pop back to the top of the page. Great if all your tags fit on one page or if you're clicking on something near the top. Horribly annoying if you're clicking on things at the bottom and have to keep scrolling back down.

+ I love that it tells me how many tags are in a bundle and just in general love the new tags sidebar. (I have ~900 fics tagged as read and over 600 individual author tags. O_o I knew I didn't read by author very much, but I didn't know it was that big a split!)

+ I like that you can reverse sort now, with oldest coming at the top.

- My Firefox extension is broken. When I try to bookmark something, it asks me to log in even though I'm already logged in. Wah!

- My author bundle is too big and FF can't seem to open it. I tried in IE and it opens, but is even more sluggish than usual when I tried bundling, to the point where I was afraid it would crash the browser.

+ Overall I like the new look. It's shiny!

Oh wow, I just noticed the URL is now delicious.com instead of del.icio.us.

1. We barely felt the earthquake here. I happened to be waking up to go to the bathroom at the time and I thought it was the workmen come back to work on our street. (They actually haven't been back today, which is nice, though we have a big trench on our street, so I assume they are coming back at some point.) Of course Bruce's aunt and mom were worried about us, which is typical of midwesterners with no idea of California geography and an overblown fear of earthquakes. My mom called, too, which is less understandable as she was born and raised here.

Also, I wish newspeople (and Bruce) would learn to differentiate between LA proper and LA county. They are not the same thing. Not even close. If you say the earthquake was centred in LA, I will assume it was in LA and wonder then why we barely felt it. Finding out it was off in the boonies in the back end of LA county makes much more sense. :p

2. Last night I made that credit card payment I was so excited about yesterday. And even better, when I checked our bank account to see if the check I deposited yesterday had gone through, I saw the transfer I was waiting for from Japan had gone through as well (this was from work I did in early June, but while they pay well and pay on schedule, their schedule for foreign invoices is like six weeks after receipt of invoice, so I just invoice, forget about it, and then by the time I get it it's like surprise money), so with that and the check I'm expecting in the next few days, I think I'll be able to pay off another credit card as well, which will bring us down to around $10,500. That means our total debt has been halved in three months of translating these videos. I have been struggling to pay that down for years and years and it was never going anywhere. God, it's so good to actually be getting paid a decent wage. I really hope this continues, at least long enough to get the rest of that knocked down.

3. This is the creepiest roof ever.

4. I've noticed recently that I have a very specific way of reading my feeds. What about you?

I tend to read graphic-only ones (or ones with very little commentary) first: Cute Overload, I Can Has Cheezburger, I Has a Hotdog, Cake Wrecks, Word to Your.com, Photoshop Disasters, Lurid Digs (so not worksafe), Graph Jam

Then I generally read Candy Blog. This is text-heavy, but I tend to skim candy I'm not interested in (especially anything that's a plain chocolate bar; those reviews were interesting the first couple times, but now it's just all the same, and I'm not really a fan of chocolate plain like that).

Then I move on to comics that don't have a lot of text: Garfield Minus Garfield, A Softer World, Penny Arcade, Sinfest, xkcd

Then I read Wondermark, which in my mind is separate from the other comics as it's usually a more read-y one.

Next comes Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. This one is a text-heavy feed, but it still comes pretty high on the list because the percentage of entries I actually read is low, so most days it's just stuff to skip.

Then it's Go Fug Yourself. This would probably be higher on the list except that it doesn't allow you to read it in the feedreader, so for some reason that means I leave it til later.

Now we start getting to the point where it's down to blogs with lots of text and/or blogs I really love, with me generally saving the best for last. Because I Said So is first, then Dinosaur Comics, which doesn't go with the other comics because of being mostly reading, then Not Always Right.

Finally it's down to my two favorite feeds, The Comics Curmudgeon and Dooce. I read Dooce first because it can be read in the feed reader, then open up a new tab for Comics Curmudgeon and read it last.

Of course not all of these are updated every day (or multiple times a day), but in general that's the order they have to be read in.

If you're reading any other blogs you think I'd be interested in, please to be linking! I am more interested in humorous stuff than srs bizness. For the latter, I tend to just read when people link to interesting stuff.

5. Wow, that ended up being really long? Here's something to be excited about. I know in last week's wank, a lot of people were talking about wanting concrit and never getting it. If so, Concrit My Fic might be the comm for you. Guidelines are here. IME this sort of comm works pretty well. I was active in one a while back (I can't even remember the name!), but ended up dropping it due to time constraints. I hope this one will take off.

I feel like I had something else to say, but now I can't remember and I'm very hungry, so it will have to wait.

Everyone who requested candy, I've mailed your packages. It's, er, not the best weather for shipping chocolate-y candy? But I hope it doesn't arrive too horribly melted. Might want to put it directly in the fridge before attempting to open it.

The other day I got an email notification for one of my credit cards saying the new statement was available, and I went to the page intending to pay it right then, when I realised that if I just waited a few days I'd be getting another check from work and would actually be able to pay off the entire balance ($1700). So I did get the check today and took it to the bank, now I just have to wait for it to clear and I can pay this off. That will take us down to around $12,800 total.

Also, when we walked up to the bank, we stopped at the store for bread and sandwich stuff and yummy grapes, and happened to see orange chocolate chip cookies, so we bought those, too, and omg, so good. I'm not usually a big fan of this type of cookie (those small, crisp ones, like Famous Amos, though these are actually Paul Newman brand), but the addition of the orange flavoring makes them really irresistible.

I'm going out to breakfast with my mom tomorrow, which yay, free breakfast, but on the other hand, I've seen her twice in the past few days, so I'm not sure there will actually be anything left to talk about. Doh.

Tom and my grandpa eventually got the faucet fixed. They only had to make a small hole on the outside wall. And now we have a not-new-but-better-than-our-old-ancient-faucet faucet. Yay.

Since we couldn't really use the kitchen while they were working, we took that as a sign to order Thai food. Also yay.

And now I have a tension headache, and it's kind of warm so I would really like the fan on me, but the cold air just makes my headache worse. Boo.

Also I still can't decide if I want to keep this mouse or not. It doesn't seem to make my wrist and arm hurt any less, but I have now got used to the feel of it and my old one feels weird. I'm loathe to keep it just for that reason, though, as it was $50.

So my mom and Tom came over today so he could do the last bits of fixing on the water heater shed, and he also brought with him a faucet for the kitchen sink (not new, but better than the one we had). Unfortunately, the old faucet was so bad that when he tried to unscrew it, it wouldn't budge and instead unscrewed a piece of pipe from inside the wall.

*headdesk*

Right now it looks like he may have to break into the wall outside. I'm just glad he did this and not me or Bruce, or we'd surely be getting the "you guys need to be more careful!" rant/lecture right about now.

Well, I finally got caught up on SGA yesterday and today. ( Spoilers for eps 1-3 )

1. Tom was over here for about six hours this afternoon taking out the old water heater and putting in the new one (with Bruce's help). I really wish he'd just knocked down the old shed and put up a new one, but that will happen at some point in the future, apparently (it sure would have made things easier today, though). It's a wonder the thing was working as well as it did, since 1. there was a year on it which said 1989, and 2. the entire bottom was rusted out and I'm not sure how it was actually holding any water. Pictures with commentary on flickr, for those interested.

2. livelongnmarry is all sorted, yay. I'm going to be writing something set in the Life (Sometimes It Washes Over Me) universe for busaikko and something Jude/Ewan (either something set in the Andyverse or something set in the universe of this teen AU, not sure which) for rawiyaparand. I'm excited about both! But first! Sweet Charity and the ficlets for people who guessed my Match fic (I have one pretty well thought out, but just not written down yet, because I seem to have been swamped in work all week and I don't know why).

3. I saw this today, and just... "Living life as a transgender"? Really? I would have expected a gay magazine to be slightly more clueful, but I guess I was wrong, wrong, wrong.

I was going to say I thought this post by coffeeandink was one of the best I'd read about Dr. Horrible, but then this one by hth_the_first showed up on my flist and it's even better (it's got some good points about Batman, too).

In other news, we got a flyer yesterday saying they were going to be doing work on our street for ten days starting on Monday...and then they started today. FUN.

Also I had a bacon and cucumber sandwich for lunch. It was very tasty.

So here's pics and reviews of the stuff kakeochi_umai sent us, as well as some other stuff I had around the house. I think I sized my pictures smaller than usual this time, oops.

( A bunch of wacky Japanese KitKats and some other stuff. )


I am also doing some giveaways along with the usual reviews, as 1. I am trying not to eat as much candy these days, and 2. some of it was not to my tastes. If you are interested in the Tropical Fruit Aero and/or the Kinako KitKat, just email me at megchan@gmail.com with your address and I will send you a couple pieces (specify which you want, or if you want both, that's fine, too). I also have a limited number of Salt & Caramel KitKats I will be giving away (I liked those quite a bit, but I don't think I want the whole bag of them around), so if you want one of the other two and are also interested these, lemme know and I'll add one in. Last but not least, although I love them to death, there's the whole trying not to eat as much candy thing, so I am giving away one Cherry Mash. I am willing to ship outside of the US, since they're small and shipping won't be that much, except for the Cherry Mash, which is heavier, so US only for that. First come, first served.

So when Bruce got home last night, he unfortunately did not know much more than me about the water heater (I just wrote "about me than the water heater", which would put our relationship in a pretty sad state, as I'm sure the water heater knows nothing about me at all). He did, at least, know where I was supposed to look for the pilot light.

But. I got the outer panel off, and the inner one was one big slab of rust. (Well, the whole water heater is one big slab of rust, but the panel even more so.) I couldn't for the life of me figure out how to get it off. It wouldn't budge, and there was no way to tell which way it was supposed to move, so I didn't want to try too hard, lest it like, break off entirely. So we just left the gas turned off for the night.

We looked online for water heaters, and why the hell are electric ones like $100 cheaper than gas? No fair! Anyway, we thought about just going to Sears this morning and buying a new one and telling my mom to take the cost out of the rent, but we decided to give it one more try first. I called my mom and Tom answered, so I asked him if he remembered what he did last time, which of course he really didn't, but he did think the panel pulled upwards.

We tried that and eventually managed to get the panel off, but amazingly enough, that was not the hardest part! For one thing, the instructions on how to do all this, while printed on the heater, are not right in front, but rather curve around to the side, making them virtually illegible, since there's, you know, a wall right there. But we finally figured out what to do, by a combination of reading what we could and trial and error. Got the thing lit. Got it to stay lit. So now it's just waiting to see if the water heats up properly.

Bruce called my mom back and told her what was up, and how bad it was leaking in there (which may be what contributed to the pilot light going out twice in the past few months when it's never done so before) and they're going to start looking around for a new water heater. So at least we don't have to do that.

I've added pics with commentary to flickr. The first is here and you should be able to see the rest just by going to the next one in the set. It's pretty bad.

1. For some reason I only got about 2.5 hours of sleep this morning. NOT COOL.

2. I have been trying to get my money from Western Union since Monday. I tried once and the guy said it was telling him he couldn't access it and to call Western Union. I called and the automated thing said the money was available, so I went back Tuesday thinking maybe it had just been a glitch in their system. Nope. So today I called Western Union again and talked to actual live people (amazingly, I didn't have much of a wait, so that was nice). I did have to get transfered once, but overall it was fairly painless and the people were helpful. Turns out the money was somehow mistakenly sent to the Philippines instead of Los Angeles. I'm not sure how that's a mistake you make, but okay! They were able to fix it, thankfully, so I was able to go over today, third day in a row, and finally get my money. ARGH. At least it's done, though, and I have my money.

3. When I was washing dishes this afternoon I noticed the water wasn't very warm. And then by the time I finished, it really wasn't warm at all. I just went to check now and it still isn't warm, so I think the hot water heater's gone out. I hope it's just the pilot light blown out or something and not needing a new one. I went out to look at it, but I can't even tell where the pilot light would be if it was on, argh. This happened a few months ago and we called my mom's husband over to look at it, but I didn't go out and look with him and Bruce, and Bruce is not home today (doing some work for his old office, yay). This may be the first time in ever that Bruce is the one with the knowledge to fix something around the house. Gah. Oh well. I'll ask him when he gets home. If I'm awake.