I don't have nearly as much packed up as I should. About a half-dozen boxes of mostly magazines, books, and CDs (I never realized how many CDs I have until now). I have, however, cleaned up some areas that were heavily cluttered (this, in effect, is still being productive, so huzzah for me!).
I also took some lovely pictures of my old place; eventually they will make their way here, though the primary reason was for me to have documentation of what everything looked like before it got turned on its ear.
It's official. Well, as official as it can be without me having signed the lease and turned over money to the new landlord.
Basically, I'm officially living at the new place on October first (!), but still technically living in my old place until the tenth. For those looking at calendars, that means I've got a little over two weeks to pack up an entire two-bedroom apartment and get it all moved into a smaller one-bedroom location.
Holy shit, what have I gotten myself into?
The biggest problem with the new place, other than the fact that I'll have to move, is that it doesn't have central heat and air. This has completely blown the mind of my dear friend Molly; given her reaction, you'd swear I had told her that I was sub-leasing the lone bathroom of a gay brothel built on an Indian graveyard. Both Jacques and Trish both say that it never got outrageously warm up there, and I'm inclined to believe them, though I will have to have a few fans placed throughout the place.
I'm not concerned, since I have central heat and air in my current place and don't rely on it too much anyway; I leave it off during the day, and it's not terribly warm when I get back home from work. On the other hand, I'm on the first floor, not the second, and I do use it some on the weekends... oh well. Once I move in and get a feel for how unbearable the heat is, I'll start buying fans; if I buy them now, it will only (a) drain my funds, which I need for the move, and (b) be one more damn thing to get in the way.
What this means for the Lair, though, is that there's no way in hell I'm going to be able to update it reliably for the next couple of weeks. Pretty much, this move is going to dominate my life for the next few weeks, so that I can get the hell out of my apartment quickly so that someone else can get in there and take the lease off my shoulders (I have to pay rent until the end of my lease [end of the year], unless they find someone else to move in). Since I haven't gotten any new content from anyone in a while, this shouldn't be too surprising, though I did listen to a new CD today that is just begging for me to write a Review for it... (hint: I don't like it). Maybe I'll write it in bits and pieces on my breaks...
It went live Friday, but I've been crazy busy all weekend. Tonight was the first time since Saturday morning that I've been home and awake for more than twenty minutes (I slept at some friends' house Saturday night).
I'd give some notes about the site, but I already did that.
Edit: For those that are curious, here is the old ACT 1 site. Quite the improvement.
Really soon.
My lovely friend Trish (she played the title role in Medea) is moving in with her equally cool boyfriend, Jacques. I saw them at a party a while back when they first announced the new living-in-sin arrangement, and logically, both of their apartments were coming up for rent.
Jacques' place sounds like it could be quite cool; the rent is a little more than a third less than what I currently pay, with a comparable amount of space. It's in Nashville, and while I love my dear old Murfreesboro and all the cool people I know in it (Courtney, Bryan, Crispy, Multi-Bob, and Cory, just to name a handful), it would put me a lot closer both to work and everything else in my social life (I'd be about fifteen minutes from the Darkhorse).
I did up some quick math on monthly costs; I don't pay for water in my current apartment, so it isn't in the new amount (I'll get an approximation of what I should expect tomorrow from my dad). However, the quick estimation makes it look like, with all of my monthly bills combined, it'll end up costing me less than my current rent alone.
Damn.
I'll have an estimated savings of $225 per month (that's a whopping $2,700 per year!); it doesn't take a genius to see the many advantages of moving out. :)
The problem with this? Well, I'd have to move. Duh. Not only that, but I'd probably have to move quickly; I'm sure the new landlord wouldn't care if I didn't move in quickly, as long as I pay my rent, but I'd need to give sufficient notice to my current apartment complex so that I don't get reamed (although they're really nice, so I'm not too worried about that).
And for the sake of repeating myself, I'd have to actually move. Ugh. Thankfully a lot of my crap is already packed up in boxes anyway, but still, I'm not looking forward to moving everything I have (desk, computers, five bookcases, a ton of books, TV, clothes, etc). I suppose I could get the majority of things packed up fairly quickly (just an entire weekend if I put my mind to it), but it wouldn't be fun.
The first order of business is to look at the space. I'll be swinging by Saturday to check it out. Hopefully it won't be too small for me; I currently have 960 square feet all to myself, but when you consider the fact that it's a two-bedroom apartment, I could stand to downsize a bit. Right now the spare bedroom is being used as a storage room. If I move into this new place, I'll have an $225 per month to spare; that will cover a pretty damn big dedicated storage unit. :)
Believe me, I never thought I'd say that. :)
No Lair update today because I've been working on a new website. This isn't an Empire site, it's a site for a pro-bono client of ours, ACT 1.
Those that pay close attention will recognize them as the theatre company that I do most of my shows with. Three guesses as to how they became a client! :)
I'm really happy with how the website has turned out. Visually, it's far better looking than anyone else's in town, and is more attractive than most of the sites I saw when I did research on other theatre sites. I've also been able to turn the site into a working archive of their history; there are numerous rotating images that showcase their past shows (as well as pimp their current productions), in addition to pretty comprehensive listings of every show (well, every show that I could get the program for; more will come post-release) that list every actor and crew member, as well as featuring a few shots for the play.
The only thing I'm not too pleased about is the fact that it is unfortunately a table-based layout; I'd prefer that it was strictly CSS-based (like the Lair and this blog are), but I have absolutely no idea what the typical user of the site is, so I had to play it safe. Oh well, it's a fairly minor issue in the long run anyway.
I'd love to show you the site, but since it's still under construction, I'm not going to give out the dev URL. I might be convinced to give out the URL via iChat, but no promises. ;)
I will, however, link to their current site (unattractive though it may be). act1online.com is the domain. I'm hoping that the site will get switched over by Friday; the domain still has to resolve to the site host, and I've got a list of things that have to be done first. I'll post when it's done.
For those that are keeping track, that makes six websites that I either own or manage (four Empire sites, work website, and soon ACT 1).
If you're a Mac user, just run Software Update. Nothing easier. :) Now, for some thoughts:
The interface, right off the bat, struck me as "odd," but that's only because it's different. I immediately felt like I was using a PC app, but I'm sure I'll get used to it if I try it out for a while.
The parental controls in the iTMS obviously don't affect me at all, but I still think it's a great idea.
The "Smart Shuffle" feature is largely redundant, as far as I'm concerned; the shuffle has always seemed to be intelligent enough to start playing songs that are relevant to what is going on before it happens. I'm afraid that Smart Shuffle means it will only play songs that involve the words "Eric" and "Ventress," which would be quite creepy (not to mention dull; silence may be golden, but not in this case).
The feature that I'm overjoyed at finally having is the ability to organize playlists into folders. Instead of my 29 playlists, I have a whopping 7 items under the Store icon. I've got my mix CD playlists in one folder, and my one-artist's-entire-catalog smart playlists in another. I heart organization. The ability to use the organizing folders and smaller libraries is a nice touch, too.
And Synergy works with it right out of the gate. Hot diggity damn. :)
So I got a call from Bob, the director of Lady's Not For Burning, Monday evening. He had some bad news: the theatre company had decided to drop the show. Apparently they were just having too much trouble getting the entire show off the ground.
I have to say, I'm really upset by this. I was really looking forward to doing the show; my character was perfect for me, and the [partial] cast was quite cool. I was looking forward to getting to know both Cassie and Valerie a bit better (and, believe it or not, I'm not talking about getting laid!), and I was looking forward to getting back onstage.
I had been keeping this part of the year clear of any commitments so that I could do the show; now I've got nothing scheduled for the next month and a half. :\
They're thinking of just postponing the show until next year; if they do that, then all of us that were cast will get first pick of the roles. That's great, but still, I was looking forward to it now, not then. :)
In the interim, Courtney and Bryan are talking about the five of us (them, me, Cassie, and Valerie) perhaps doing a small show to fill the void; no clue what the show might be, since they haven't talked to Cassie or Valerie yet.
And, of course, I've already gotten asked to work on a show this weekend and next. I can't do it, though; gas prices are just too high. I told the director this, and she said she might be calling me back with an offer to help with the gas money. I love being so damn good at my job. :)
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Whee. It only took me sacrificing a Saturday... actually, that's not true, but it did take me about 4 and a half hours to clear out everything. Factor in the time I took to eat a late breakfast/lunch and get sucked into a damn sappy movie on TV (Someone Like You, if you must know), and it pretty much killed my Saturday.
Thankfully, with gas prices being what they are, I wasn't planning on going out much this weekend anyway.