3:41 p.m. - 2004-03-27
back from the 10th circle of hell
Dante may have only defined 9 circles, but I'd like to add 2 more to the mix:
Circle 10: For movers, and all those who cause people to move.
Circle 11: Fondly referred to the "N*kia" circle.
Yes, the N-Gage title finally went gold (twice) and I don't live where I used to live anymore. I have returned from the Great Beyond of Cardboard Boxes!
Except not really, because my apartment is still full of unpacked shit.
But, as you will note, my computer is unpacked and connected to the Internet, because we have Priorities and they do not include making sure all the flatware is unpacked and properly sorted.
Also of note is the fact that my computer desk now looks out through a window onto a quaint, tree-lined street...from the SECOND FLOOR.
Yes, we now live in a townhouse. With STAIRS.
Please try to contain your excitement until the end of the tour.
There's quite a lot that we want to buy from Ikea - mainly a bed, more wardrobes and a kitchen display cabinet since we have approximately two cabinets in the whole kitchen. Seriously, our MUG collection is threatening to take up the whole kitchen, and we haven't even bothered to unpack the booze yet.
But all of those things are approximately twice as long as the poor little Jetta, so we will have to find time to rent a U-Haul. And how we will get them up our entry stairs I have no idea.
We're also trying to get used to gas heating, which is new to both of us. Even though we instructed the utility company to leave everything on, they turned our gas off when the previous tenant vacated, which unbenoust to us caused the pilot lights to go off in both heaters and the water heater.
So you can imagine my discontent when I awoke the first morning here to discover we were completely devoid of toilet paper, paper towels, tissues, food, heat, and HOT WATER.
After the stress of the N-Gage and the move (which by most accounts sucked, and by all accounts sucked even more than the Pittsburgh move), waking up to such a dearth of anything caused me to break down into uncontrollable crying for the better part of the morning. That wasn't pretty AT ALL.
I refuse to go into the specifics of the move, because I don't want to relive it, but it seemed to be going ok until we got here, when we started discovering that the packing was haphazard to downright crappy, several items had been damaged, and we had no idea how much the charges were going to be.
Whatever. I TOLD SimParentCompany that these movers were crap and were charging too much, but they insisted we go with this company and that they'd pick up any overage above the cap. Not my problem, right?
Astute readers will note that it has actually been a week since the move - I have spent the last week in San Jose at the Game Developers Conference. I'm also not going to write about this in detail here right now, because there are lots of real names and stuff and it would be complicated. I wrote about it briefly in my Livejournal (the place where my friends and i comment on crap that happens to us).
Suffice it to say that it was exhausting but cool, that I planned better than last year, and that I not only was finally introducer to Gaming God Will Wright but got to talk to him on two separate occasions and sit next to him during one of the talks. I'm such a geeky fan girl, I swear to God.
That being said, I do need to work on my networking skills, because my old Schmooze Skills just aren't what they used to be.
And I drank WAY too much on Thursday night. Holy shit. Practically got kicked out of the bathroom after being horrendously, horrendously ill. Drinking on an empty stomach at a free open bar after an incredibly stressful month will do that to you.
Maybe I'll write more about that later, but I just feel too guilty about being so ill and needing people to take care of me like that. Sigh.
Anyway, it's been quite a few weeks, and it will continue to be interesting. (Ancient Chinese Curse: May you live in interesting times.) After all, I'll be reporting to work on Monday in an entirely new location and I don't even know where my fricking desk is. (Although I do know that it is a window cube, which narrows things down. A bit.) Am I going to have to go to the front desk and ask for an escort to my workspace?
Tune in next times for more Adventures in Moving and Gaming with your host, Athena.
