Category: Sci-Fi/Fantasy

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We actually did brave the line on Friday, sort of. A line of kids running out of Borders at the Block just as we were trying to get in, around 10:30. We stayed to look at the entertainment, which the adults were enjoying at least as much as the kids, and then got some coffee for the drive back. One woman seemed very optimistic about the amount of stuff she’d be able to get done while waiting–I didn’t see it, but Kelson reported that she had a thick stack of things like Divorce for Dummies piled next to her latte.

Saturday, we went on our roughly trimonthly software spree and netted about 8 relatively cool things for about 40% of the original cost. Leaving Fry’s, Kelson said, “So, where to? Home?…Food?…Borders?”

“Borders.”

Three minutes later: “Crap! We don’t have the confirmation number!”

It didn’t matter. The petite witch in the corset handed me a ticket that said “Hufflepuff 707” with no more ID than my name. I went off and picked up the Spanish edition of Prisoner of Azkaban that I’d seen the night before, which I got for 10% off. $30 for both PdA and OotP–not bad. And I only had to be in Hufflepuff for ten minutes.

I don’t remember where I left off Saturday night, but I picked it back up over breakfast on Sunday and didn’t put it down until somewhere around page 417, when it took me half an hour to convince myself to pick it back up again. Tenth grade is hell, and I know it intimately, but it was all just hitting too close. Maybe that speaks well of JKR, maybe it says she’s beating an undead horse. All I know is it very nearly lost me.

I did finish, about dinnertime on Sunday. And sort of went whaaaaaah at the sheer monumentality of 1) the book having been written and 2) my having read it.

I’ll be going all comp-lit on it in another post. Right now, though, bed.

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It’s the law: all employers in California have to provide work comp coverage for all their employees. Even Wolfram & Hart.

Normal law firms probably don’t have much of a premium. Evil law firms, however, might see a big increase. For this reason, I think they’re probably self-insured. That, and they can keep all medical treatment and administration entirely in-house (especially given that their “house” has locations on several worlds and lots of unofficial ties in this one), along with as much defense litigation as possible. I’d imagine they don’t incur many penalties either, since it’s likely they can turn back time to avoid late payments. And if an employee wants to argue that anything they’ve gotten is less than they deserve, I’d imagine the second phase of their employment isn’t long in starting.

Sample injured worker: Lindsey. Definitely injured on the job, so the injury is fully compensable. According to the California permanent disability rating guidelines, loss of the dominant hand between wrist and elbow, inclusive, where a prosthesis is possible, has a standard PD rating of 60%, meaning 60% of the jobs available wouldn’t hire you with that disability. When you adjust for age (assuming he’s just shy of 30) and occupation, both of which lower the rating, it ends up at 53%. This is, of course, not counting in psychiatric effects, which would probably raise the rating. So, if he settled his claim, which W&H would probably “encourage” him to do, he’d be entitled to at least $49,342.50 in compensation. And they’d have been in something of a bind later if he did settle, since he’d have ended up with minimal PD and they couldn’t legally recoup their money.

Way too much time on my (evil) hands.

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(Spoilers for last night’s Buffy the Vampire Slayer finale)

EARTHQUAKE DESTROYS CALIFORNIA TOWN

By Kelson Vibber, staff writer

A 5.9 earthquake struck the Central California town of Sunnydale Tuesday morning, rattling windows as far away as Los Angeles and San Francisco and triggering a massive sinkhole which appears to have buried the entire town. In an amazing twist of luck, however, the death toll may turn out to be zero.

Emergency workers dispatched from neighboring communities have reported the scene is one of eerie silence – largely because many of the town’s residents had left over the past few weeks.

Keep reading at Reflections.