In more entertaining news, two stories. The first is rated G3 for blood-related goriness. The second is rated G9 for mega-geekage. You have been warned.


1. Along with new silverware, Tom also bought us some new kitchen knives for Christmas. Just a small set of four mid-size knives, to replace our old ones, which were from the college kitchen-in-a-box sets, and whose blades are now falling out of their handles.

A day or so after Christmas, I was getting ready to do up a big load of dishes. I decided that while I'd hold off on the big set of silverware until I was more caught up on dishes, adding the four knives wouldn't be a big deal. The blades were encased in that ridiculously stubborn kind of plastic, that's shaped to exactly fit the contents, and has that thick border around the edges, that's an absolute nightmare to deal with. Glancing around, I didn't see any scissors offhand, but on the table was this odd little Swiss army sort of kitchen tool, whose corkscrew we'd been making use of. It also had a pretty sturdy little blade, so I decided to take that to the plastic, and just cut into the edge enough to pry the thing open.

I honestly don't know at what point the knife slipped, but, suddenly I had the sickening realization that I'd plunged the blade full-force deeply into my finger, and I was bleeding all over the place. Very nearly Monty Python style bleeding, I'd never bled that much at once in my *life*. I ran over to the sink and turned on the cold water, plunging my finger under it, trying to keep calm and figure out what I should do - and calling loudly for Tom.

I am rather proud of the fact that I really did stay pretty calm, I didn't scream or anything, just, called a little desperately for Tom to come down right away. As he came down, I watched the blood continue to pour out of my finger and into the sink.

Of course, the sink *would* just happen to clog up, and so was rapidly filling with blood-colored water. I was just thinking to myself, relieved that I wasn't going to be one of those people who fainted at the sight of blood.

Tom came down, and as we debated what to put on the wound (paper towel would stick too badly, but we were pretty sure we were out of band-aids), Tom remembered the emergency car kit my grandparents had gotten him for Christmas. Miracle of all miracles, it contained a small first aid kit. He ran out to get it, but it was a good few minutes more before I could bring myself to pull my finger out from the stream of freezing water.

I'd been feeling very relieved that I wasn't going to be one of those people who faints at the sight of a lot of a blood...and not ten seconds after that thought, realized I was feeling woozy. Tom was hovering near, and as I slowly sat down on the floor (still holding my finger over the sink), my vision started blackening around the edges and fading out - just like it did the one time I *did* faint. It was a near thing this time, but it faded back away after a minute - probably once I stopped looking at the sink full of bloodwater. x_x I didn't *feel* freaked out, but Tom and I both figured it was just a physiological side-effect of my brain seeing an awful lot of blood leak out of me.

Tom slathered some iodine over the cut, and bandaged it up pretty nicely. He was very sweet, and though he started cracking jokes about it a liiittle too soon, god did he keep me calm through the whole thing. I spent the rest of the night curled up sedately in bed, reading, fighting to keep my mind off the finger which hurt SO, so bad, for hours afterward. It's now, what, a week, week and a half later, and I think yesterday was the first day I went around the whole day without a band-aid on it. It was pretty gruesomely black and blue around the area for a few days, but is almost healed now.

I think it is important to note the irony of the fact that I stabbed myself with a knife while opening... a package of knives.


The second story is briefer and less traumatic.

2. Tom is currently downloading a HIGH-QUALITY! COMPLETE!! torrent of all the Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes. It is something like 60gb in size. But we are very excited. Tom, being an impatient person, has been watching episodes as soon as they download - in some cases, *before* they've quite finished downloading, which leads to the occasional video glitch. Last night we were watching a few episodes, and I was getting a little giggly, and having just watched "The Naked Now" (a rip-off of the original Star Trek episode of the same name, wherein everyone get an illness that makes them act drunk), I decided we should have a Star Trek drinking game. Especially since "Far Point" had just finished downloading, and, having re-watched a few first season episodes already, I knew it would be far more fun to watch while tipsy.

The interweb knows a LOT of Star Trek drinking games. The nets are full of nerds. <3

We read through a good chunk of rules on this site, and, hell, just reading them is funny enough after watching a few episodes. We stuck to the TNG ones, and pretty much just the character-specific ones. (Data - when his head is open. LaForge - when he rolls his chair from one station to another. "OH MY *GOD*, he does that ALL the time! I didn't even *think* about that!" Riker - for "rrrrred alert!")

God are we nerds. We knew exactly what they were talking about every time. ...well, except one. For Troi, they listed "when she makes that face. you know what we're talking about." And Tom and I looked at each other, unsure.

And then we watched an episode.

At the *exact* same moment, as soon as the camera went to a close-up of her anguished face as she read another species' emotions: "*THAT* face!!!!!"

So, I scrounged up Christmas and New Years and various other alcoholic left-overs. We discovered that some of our sake had turned, and it didn't take long to polish off the newest bottle I'd bought (which was *amazing*, and so worth the price). Fortunately, there was still some wine left, as well as a few mini-bottles of things floating around. Tom's boss had given him a mini-bottle of Southern Comfort for Christmas, which Tom professed himself unable to drink.

Wasn't long before Tom decided he wasn't going to enjoy the drinking, so much as he was going to enjoy watching me try to drink the Southern Comfort. I wasn't about to take full-on shots of sweetened battery acid, so I stuck with little sips.

...one of the rules is "every time Wes wears a sweater".

OMFG HE WEARS A SWEATER IN EVERY DAMN SCENE!!!

I also made the poor suggestion of "every time there's a really, really bad matte job". While "Farpoint" is *amazing* for a pilot, and they really did a brilliant job with what must have been a pretty limited budget...omg are their mattes AWFUL. There's like half an inch of black around the ship when it's shown against a planet! Oh it was painful.

...I eventually had to protest when Tom tried to make me take another sip for a bad matte, when it was the same shot of the ship they'd used five minutes earlier. I'm not even kidding. Same shot, like four times in an episode. God did it hurt.

So, Melissa was a very dizzy little Melissa by the end of the two-parter pilot episode. Thank God that bottle of Southern Comfort was as little as it was, man was that strong. (It was the equivalent of like, maybe two real shots, so no need for my readers to be concerned.) I will say though, it makes first season Next Gen a hell of a lot more entertaining. "NOOOOO NOT ANOTHER SWEATER!!!" "WHAT?! I thought the only episode where they showed the ceiling of the bridge was Data's dream! I didn't know they showed it in THIS one!" "That's the SAME shot of the ship as the last one! I already took a drink for it! SAME SHOT!!!"