The beginning of our first shift on Thursday morning is also the end of the weekday overnight crews last shift, and thanks to the nature of our shift structure, we have have a one hour overlap with them before they leave for their three day weekend (which is nowhere near as good as our four day weekend, though they only have to put in ten hour workdays).
In any case, while we do have a semi-formalized process for handing off any issues from shift to shift, we generally engage in a less formal exchange of information during the overlap.
I can't really get into specifics here, but on Thursday morning Scott noticed that one of the standard job duties hadn't been performed during the night, and so he asked if there was some reason.
The person working overnights - we'll call her "Mitzi," for reasons I'll explain in a bit - provided him with a rather puzzling response, one that was all-too representative a sample of what it's like to communicate with her. It went something like this:
Scott: Mitzi, is there a reason that Task X hasn't been done all night?
Mitzi: Oh, we're not doing that anymore.
Scott: Oh? Since when?
Mitzi: For a while.
Scott (Puzzled by the fact that we didn't receive any official notification of this, as it was a pretty substantial change): Who told you we're not doing it anymore?
Mitzi: No one told me.
Scott (Looks at me, shakes his head in confusion and consternation): Well, then how do you know we're not doing it anymore?
Mitzi: Because somebody told me.
(In the background, Jon can be heard coughing in an attempt to suprress laughter)
Later, Mitzi began giving information to Scott about some tasks for the station I was going to be working:
Scott: I'm not working that station, Jon is.
Mitzi: Oh, well I don't know who's working that station, but -
Scott: Jon's working that station.
Mitzi: Okay. (Begins giving Scott the information again)
Scott: Jon's working -
Me: I'm working that -
(We both give up and just let her go on)
And so it goes...
Now, the reason I called her Mitzi relates to something that happened years ago when I was still working in the call center in Tucson.
Members of "teams" used a chat room to communicate with each other while on the phones.
This was, theoretically, for the purposes of asking each other questions and relaying important information.
In practice it was used for goofing off and making smart-ass comments about each other, and, more importantly, about the customers calling in.
One day someone on my team mentioned that she was on the phone with someone named Mitzi.
We all had a good LOL about that, and began speculating on the limited career opportunities available to women named Mitzi. Someone suggested Showgirl. I chimed in with Gun Moll.
The best response, though, came from my friend Jon Betts, who provided, "A Ditz. A Professional Ditz."
*Sigh* I miss his dumb ass.
In any case, that's why "Mitzi" seemed like an appropriate pseudonym to protect the ditzy.
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Wednesday Hodge Podge Post
I woke up this morning convinced that it must still be around, say, 6 AM, only to discover that it was actually 9.
This annoyed me because I really didn’t want to get up, but given how short my Wednesdays are already thanks to my insanely early bedtime (an insanely early bedtime that allows me to get up before 5 AM and still manage to get a lot of sleep and manage to stay awake while sitting in one spot in a dark, cold, boring room for 12+ hours), so, cursing Father Time, I got up.
I then proceeded to turn on the oven to preheat it in order to cook the breakfast casserole I’d prepared last night.
While that was cooking I talked to my mother – who is moving into a different apartment within the same complex she’s in this weekend, as it’s on a lower floor and has a southern exposure so she’ll actually get some sunlight – and then got around to eating the aforementioned casserole.
Well, part of it, anyway, because even though I’d halved the recipe I’d based it on, it was still a lot more food than I’m inclined eat in one sitting.
(The recipe as found, but not as prepared, follows:
2 lbs. pork sausage (1 hot, 1 mild)
3 c. milk
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
9 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1 sm. bag Ore Ida hash browns
Cook sausage over medium heat until done, stirring to crumble. Drain well on paper towels, set aside. In same skillet, brown hash browns, over medium heat. Combine sausage, hash browns and remaining ingredients, mixing well. Pour into a well greased 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan. Refrigerate covered, overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Makes 8 to 10 servings.)
After eating I got around to showering and pinged Brian to see if he was up for seeing the movie today. He had to bring one of the cats to the vet not long before the movie’s start time, so that was pretty much a negative, and so I was left to decide whether or not I wanted to go see it alone.
While deciding, I worked on a tutorial for creating a postage mark.
The result of said tutorial work is shown below:
I made it a postage mark from Perdition, because that’s ever-so slightly more esoteric than Hell. Besides, there’s a Hell in Michigan, which people like to mail things from just so that it can be postmarked “Hell.” Similarly, around the holidays people like to mail presents from Christmas, Michigan.
While working on that, I thought, “What else do I have to do?” and so opted to head to the theater.
For a while I thought I was going to be the only person there, but then someone else came in, and after her a small group of teenagers came in, and, though there was no good reason for them to do so in the near-empty theater, they sat near me. Since it wasn’t as though those were “prime” seats, I assumed this meant that the Universe was just preparing to fuck with me by having these little shits behind me so that they could interfere with my enjoyment of the movie as much, and as loudly, as possible.
Fortunately they were reasonably quiet, so they didn’t annoy me too much beyond simply existing.
One of them did annoy me slightly after the trailer for the movie Lucky You – a movie that I saw a trailer for months and months ago, in the summer, I think, and which still doesn’t have an actual release date – starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore.
The kid said, “That looked pretty good until Drew Barrymore started crying. Then it, like, lost all credibility.”
I wanted to turn around and say, “What the fuck are you talking about? Do you even know what words mean?”
Instead I simply sighed and shook my head.
Then the movie started.
…
It was interesting, and, oddly enough it had some moments of real humor, though I think that they just stood out so prominently because they were set against such a bleak and humorless backdrop.
The basic premise of the movie is this: 20 years in the future, women have become infertile, with the last new child having been born 18 years earlier. The species is doomed, and that’s just one of the many problems in the world. In its dying throes, the ugliest aspects of humanity have come to the surface and we find ourselves visiting an England in which, much like the England of V for Vendetta, one of the worst crimes you can commit is to be from somewhere else.
Illegal immigrants – foogies as they’re called – are rounded up and placed in internment camps before being shipped away.
There is, of course, violent resistance to this state of affairs, and very early in the movie we’re hit with an act of stunning terrorist violence – the first of many.
The plot of the movie is centered around the quest to get a young foogie girl safely out of the country. This particular foogie is the most important person in the world. Why? Because she’s eight months pregnant.
The rest is all backstory and personal histories – such as the connection between the protagonist, Theo, played by Clive Owen, and the leader of the resistance group, Julian, played by Julianne Moore.
I have to say that I liked the pacing and the manner in which important information was provided to the audience (a sort of slow unfolding that inspires a growing awareness), and there are a lot of nice little stylistic touches, like the music, most notably the subtly not-quite right (thanks to the singer’s accent) cover of Ruby Tuesday.
I also appreciate the attention to subtle details. For example, in the movie Julianne Moore is in her 40s, which means she would have been in her 20s during the early 2000s, and as a mature woman she still bears the trappings that would have been de rigueur for an activist of that earlier time, such as a distinctive tattoo and a nose piercing.
So yeah, I’d say it was worth seeing. I can’t say for certain whether or not Brian would have liked it, but I’m kind of leaning towards him not liking it.
Once I got home I checked the mail and found that I’d gotten my belated Christmas present from Kevin.
I was surprised to find that it was two CDs. One I’d expected because he’d mentioned it when I last talked to him. It’s a CD called Where’s Neil When You Need Him? which consists of songs inspired by the works of Neil Gaiman, written and performed mostly by people I’ve only heard of because Neil has mentioned them in reference to the CD on his blog, and Tori Amos, who is a friend of Neil’s and who, by asking the question in one of her songs – she frequently makes references to Neil in her lyrics – provided the title for the CD.
The second CD, though, was a bit of a head-scratcher that falls into the “Uhhh…?” category, as I’m not quite sure what inspired him purchase it for me.
The CD is titled What is Hip?
It consists of remixes of songs that were popular when I was a kid. Songs by people like The Doobie Brothers and Seals and Croft (A remix of Summer Breeze that was, apparently, used in a Gap commercial, which explains why it sounded vaguely familiar).
So, yeah. I gave it a quick listen (listening to the Neil CD now), and it’s…interesting.
Still, I can see the motivation for getting me a CD with material based on Neil Gaiman’s work, but not really sure about the other one.
(In my thank you e-mail I quipped to Kevin that the only time that I think that “Jon” and “hip” will be likely to appear in a sentence together is in a form like “Jon slipped in the shower and broke his hip.”)
After I’d left the theater and turned my phone on I discovered that I had a voice mail from Kathleen, who was expressing anger and dismay at the fact that she’d gotten voice mail when calling me. I called her back and got her voice mail, even though it was already too late and I wouldn’t have been able to help her anyway (she needed someone to look up a phone number online, apparently).
Inside the box that Amazon shipped the CDs in was a little piece of paper that said, “Why worry about Valentine’s Day?”
I responded, “Exactly.”
I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that pretty much sums up my feelings about it.
Anyway, that was my day in a – wordy and boring – nutshell.
Three long days of work lie ahead of me, and I’m sure that tomorrow night I’ll continue what has become my Thursday night tradition of only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep for no apparent reason other than that I simply will not fall asleep.
I just don’t get that. What is the mechanism that keeps you awake like that, despite the fact that you’re tired? I mean, I’m tired, I want to sleep, and I’m in bed. What more is needed to make sleep happen?
But whatever, I guess I’ll swear at that bridge when I come to it.
In the meantime, I hope you all have more interesting and exciting weekends than I’m likely to have.
This annoyed me because I really didn’t want to get up, but given how short my Wednesdays are already thanks to my insanely early bedtime (an insanely early bedtime that allows me to get up before 5 AM and still manage to get a lot of sleep and manage to stay awake while sitting in one spot in a dark, cold, boring room for 12+ hours), so, cursing Father Time, I got up.
I then proceeded to turn on the oven to preheat it in order to cook the breakfast casserole I’d prepared last night.
While that was cooking I talked to my mother – who is moving into a different apartment within the same complex she’s in this weekend, as it’s on a lower floor and has a southern exposure so she’ll actually get some sunlight – and then got around to eating the aforementioned casserole.
Well, part of it, anyway, because even though I’d halved the recipe I’d based it on, it was still a lot more food than I’m inclined eat in one sitting.
(The recipe as found, but not as prepared, follows:
2 lbs. pork sausage (1 hot, 1 mild)
3 c. milk
1 tsp. salt
1 1/2 c. shredded cheddar cheese
9 eggs, beaten
1 1/2 tsp. dry mustard
1 sm. bag Ore Ida hash browns
Cook sausage over medium heat until done, stirring to crumble. Drain well on paper towels, set aside. In same skillet, brown hash browns, over medium heat. Combine sausage, hash browns and remaining ingredients, mixing well. Pour into a well greased 13 x 9 x 2 inch baking pan. Refrigerate covered, overnight. Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour.
Makes 8 to 10 servings.)
After eating I got around to showering and pinged Brian to see if he was up for seeing the movie today. He had to bring one of the cats to the vet not long before the movie’s start time, so that was pretty much a negative, and so I was left to decide whether or not I wanted to go see it alone.
While deciding, I worked on a tutorial for creating a postage mark.
The result of said tutorial work is shown below:
I made it a postage mark from Perdition, because that’s ever-so slightly more esoteric than Hell. Besides, there’s a Hell in Michigan, which people like to mail things from just so that it can be postmarked “Hell.” Similarly, around the holidays people like to mail presents from Christmas, Michigan.
While working on that, I thought, “What else do I have to do?” and so opted to head to the theater.
For a while I thought I was going to be the only person there, but then someone else came in, and after her a small group of teenagers came in, and, though there was no good reason for them to do so in the near-empty theater, they sat near me. Since it wasn’t as though those were “prime” seats, I assumed this meant that the Universe was just preparing to fuck with me by having these little shits behind me so that they could interfere with my enjoyment of the movie as much, and as loudly, as possible.
Fortunately they were reasonably quiet, so they didn’t annoy me too much beyond simply existing.
One of them did annoy me slightly after the trailer for the movie Lucky You – a movie that I saw a trailer for months and months ago, in the summer, I think, and which still doesn’t have an actual release date – starring Eric Bana and Drew Barrymore.
The kid said, “That looked pretty good until Drew Barrymore started crying. Then it, like, lost all credibility.”
I wanted to turn around and say, “What the fuck are you talking about? Do you even know what words mean?”
Instead I simply sighed and shook my head.
Then the movie started.
…
It was interesting, and, oddly enough it had some moments of real humor, though I think that they just stood out so prominently because they were set against such a bleak and humorless backdrop.
The basic premise of the movie is this: 20 years in the future, women have become infertile, with the last new child having been born 18 years earlier. The species is doomed, and that’s just one of the many problems in the world. In its dying throes, the ugliest aspects of humanity have come to the surface and we find ourselves visiting an England in which, much like the England of V for Vendetta, one of the worst crimes you can commit is to be from somewhere else.
Illegal immigrants – foogies as they’re called – are rounded up and placed in internment camps before being shipped away.
There is, of course, violent resistance to this state of affairs, and very early in the movie we’re hit with an act of stunning terrorist violence – the first of many.
The plot of the movie is centered around the quest to get a young foogie girl safely out of the country. This particular foogie is the most important person in the world. Why? Because she’s eight months pregnant.
The rest is all backstory and personal histories – such as the connection between the protagonist, Theo, played by Clive Owen, and the leader of the resistance group, Julian, played by Julianne Moore.
I have to say that I liked the pacing and the manner in which important information was provided to the audience (a sort of slow unfolding that inspires a growing awareness), and there are a lot of nice little stylistic touches, like the music, most notably the subtly not-quite right (thanks to the singer’s accent) cover of Ruby Tuesday.
I also appreciate the attention to subtle details. For example, in the movie Julianne Moore is in her 40s, which means she would have been in her 20s during the early 2000s, and as a mature woman she still bears the trappings that would have been de rigueur for an activist of that earlier time, such as a distinctive tattoo and a nose piercing.
So yeah, I’d say it was worth seeing. I can’t say for certain whether or not Brian would have liked it, but I’m kind of leaning towards him not liking it.
Once I got home I checked the mail and found that I’d gotten my belated Christmas present from Kevin.
I was surprised to find that it was two CDs. One I’d expected because he’d mentioned it when I last talked to him. It’s a CD called Where’s Neil When You Need Him? which consists of songs inspired by the works of Neil Gaiman, written and performed mostly by people I’ve only heard of because Neil has mentioned them in reference to the CD on his blog, and Tori Amos, who is a friend of Neil’s and who, by asking the question in one of her songs – she frequently makes references to Neil in her lyrics – provided the title for the CD.
The second CD, though, was a bit of a head-scratcher that falls into the “Uhhh…?” category, as I’m not quite sure what inspired him purchase it for me.
The CD is titled What is Hip?
It consists of remixes of songs that were popular when I was a kid. Songs by people like The Doobie Brothers and Seals and Croft (A remix of Summer Breeze that was, apparently, used in a Gap commercial, which explains why it sounded vaguely familiar).
So, yeah. I gave it a quick listen (listening to the Neil CD now), and it’s…interesting.
Still, I can see the motivation for getting me a CD with material based on Neil Gaiman’s work, but not really sure about the other one.
(In my thank you e-mail I quipped to Kevin that the only time that I think that “Jon” and “hip” will be likely to appear in a sentence together is in a form like “Jon slipped in the shower and broke his hip.”)
After I’d left the theater and turned my phone on I discovered that I had a voice mail from Kathleen, who was expressing anger and dismay at the fact that she’d gotten voice mail when calling me. I called her back and got her voice mail, even though it was already too late and I wouldn’t have been able to help her anyway (she needed someone to look up a phone number online, apparently).
Inside the box that Amazon shipped the CDs in was a little piece of paper that said, “Why worry about Valentine’s Day?”
I responded, “Exactly.”
I’m sure there’s more to it than that, but that pretty much sums up my feelings about it.
Anyway, that was my day in a – wordy and boring – nutshell.
Three long days of work lie ahead of me, and I’m sure that tomorrow night I’ll continue what has become my Thursday night tradition of only getting about 3-4 hours of sleep for no apparent reason other than that I simply will not fall asleep.
I just don’t get that. What is the mechanism that keeps you awake like that, despite the fact that you’re tired? I mean, I’m tired, I want to sleep, and I’m in bed. What more is needed to make sleep happen?
But whatever, I guess I’ll swear at that bridge when I come to it.
In the meantime, I hope you all have more interesting and exciting weekends than I’m likely to have.
Late Night Picture Post
I don't think I really need to say much about this picture, done in my more traditional style, of Alessandra Ambrosio, but a thousand words - in picture form - follow.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Hungry vs. Tired
This morning found me getting up at 7 AM to bring my car in for an oil change and emissions inspection.
I hate the system that the service center at my car dealership uses. Basically you call in to make an “appointment,” which just means that you’ve reserved the right to wait in line on a particular morning.
Given that people seem to camp out there like nerds in line for Star Wars tickets, you can never hope to be the first in line, and when you get there you’re never really sure if you should pull off into a parking space to wait, or actually stay in the line with the other idling cars until they finally open.
Once they do open, you’re never sure if you should go in or not, because they usually send someone around to the cars to assign them a number. You can go inside and talk to them, but it seems like you’re better off getting a number put on your car’s rearview mirror first, though they don’t actually seem to work on the cars in any sort of particular order anyway, so ultimately being the first in line may not do you all that much good.
In any case, once my car was being attended to, I went off to sit in the waiting area.
Given that something I always does, I expected some sort of problem that would cost me money and leave me without a car for at least a day would pop up. After having sat there for over an hour, I was sure of it, and waited for the shoe to drop once my name was called.
The service guy said, “There’s a problem.”
I said, “There always is.”
However, this one would cost me anything extra and won’t even deprive me of my car. All it will cost me is some irritation and additional waiting.
Basically my car’s computer got reset somehow, which means that there’s no information in it that can be used for the emissions testing. This means that I have to put 50-75 miles on the car to allow it to capture data before bringing it back to get the emissions test done.
And at least with the inspection I don’t have to get it done in the morning; I can bring it in any time during the day.
Of course, I don’t drive around enough to quickly put on 75 miles before the weekend, so it’ll have to wait until next week.
Once I got home I found that I was very tired from having only gotten about 6 hours of sleep, and so, since it was only 9, I considered going back to bed.
While I’d been up, though, I’d gotten hungry, so I also considered making breakfast.
It then became a contest between hungry and tired to determine my next course of action.
After climbing into bed it seemed clear that tired had won, but while I was lying there hunger asserted itself and soon I’d made the move from the bedroom to the kitchen.
From there it was back to bed, where I only managed to half-doze for about an hour.
Once I got up I thought about going to see the movie Children of Men in order to speed up the mile-logging process.
I gave Brian a call to see if he wanted to go with me, but he said he was too swamped today, but that he could do it tomorrow, so that scrapped my plans for the afternoon.
(I’ll bet he would have cleared his calendar if I’d said I wanted to see Stomp the Yard)
And that’s been my day so far. I still may venture out into the world to get a few things, though I don’t need much, as I managed to stock up pretty well last week when I went shopping.
Oh Yeah, I Forgot One Department:
When bitching about commercials yesterday I forgot one.
It’s the commercial in which we find ourselves at some sort of party where a group of attractive(ish) women in their 30s are gathered around having a discussion about birth control, and one of them brings up this exciting new product.
Once she mentions it, one of the other chicks says, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard about that,” and then proceeds to completely take over the conversation, rattling off facts about the product as though she’s some sort of paid spokesperson for it.
After she finishes reciting the pharmaceutical company boilerplate, one of the friends jokingly says, “Show off,” to which the spokesmodel says, “Hey, I didn’t go to medical school for nothing.”
They all share a hearty laugh, and go back to their Sex in the City-esque repartee.
The thing that bothers me is that chick who brought up the product in the first place never gets to talk about it, and doesn’t seem bothered by the way her friend, who obviously has a compulsive need to be the center of attention and can’t wait for an opportunity to rub the fact that she went to medical school in all of their faces.
If I were the chick who got shouted down by Dr. Talksalot, I’d be all like, “Bitch, I was talking. Nobody asked for you to recite the press release you got from the pharmaceutical company along with your free samples, all right? We all know you went to medical school seeing as how you never talk about anything else.”
In any case, that’s it for this particular edition of pointlessness.
(Oh yeah, and be sure to click on the National Gorilla Suit Day banner over on the right. Thanks to Neil Gaiman for bringing this important holiday to my attention over on his blog.)
I hate the system that the service center at my car dealership uses. Basically you call in to make an “appointment,” which just means that you’ve reserved the right to wait in line on a particular morning.
Given that people seem to camp out there like nerds in line for Star Wars tickets, you can never hope to be the first in line, and when you get there you’re never really sure if you should pull off into a parking space to wait, or actually stay in the line with the other idling cars until they finally open.
Once they do open, you’re never sure if you should go in or not, because they usually send someone around to the cars to assign them a number. You can go inside and talk to them, but it seems like you’re better off getting a number put on your car’s rearview mirror first, though they don’t actually seem to work on the cars in any sort of particular order anyway, so ultimately being the first in line may not do you all that much good.
In any case, once my car was being attended to, I went off to sit in the waiting area.
Given that something I always does, I expected some sort of problem that would cost me money and leave me without a car for at least a day would pop up. After having sat there for over an hour, I was sure of it, and waited for the shoe to drop once my name was called.
The service guy said, “There’s a problem.”
I said, “There always is.”
However, this one would cost me anything extra and won’t even deprive me of my car. All it will cost me is some irritation and additional waiting.
Basically my car’s computer got reset somehow, which means that there’s no information in it that can be used for the emissions testing. This means that I have to put 50-75 miles on the car to allow it to capture data before bringing it back to get the emissions test done.
And at least with the inspection I don’t have to get it done in the morning; I can bring it in any time during the day.
Of course, I don’t drive around enough to quickly put on 75 miles before the weekend, so it’ll have to wait until next week.
Once I got home I found that I was very tired from having only gotten about 6 hours of sleep, and so, since it was only 9, I considered going back to bed.
While I’d been up, though, I’d gotten hungry, so I also considered making breakfast.
It then became a contest between hungry and tired to determine my next course of action.
After climbing into bed it seemed clear that tired had won, but while I was lying there hunger asserted itself and soon I’d made the move from the bedroom to the kitchen.
From there it was back to bed, where I only managed to half-doze for about an hour.
Once I got up I thought about going to see the movie Children of Men in order to speed up the mile-logging process.
I gave Brian a call to see if he wanted to go with me, but he said he was too swamped today, but that he could do it tomorrow, so that scrapped my plans for the afternoon.
(I’ll bet he would have cleared his calendar if I’d said I wanted to see Stomp the Yard)
And that’s been my day so far. I still may venture out into the world to get a few things, though I don’t need much, as I managed to stock up pretty well last week when I went shopping.
Oh Yeah, I Forgot One Department:
When bitching about commercials yesterday I forgot one.
It’s the commercial in which we find ourselves at some sort of party where a group of attractive(ish) women in their 30s are gathered around having a discussion about birth control, and one of them brings up this exciting new product.
Once she mentions it, one of the other chicks says, “Oh yeah, I’ve heard about that,” and then proceeds to completely take over the conversation, rattling off facts about the product as though she’s some sort of paid spokesperson for it.
After she finishes reciting the pharmaceutical company boilerplate, one of the friends jokingly says, “Show off,” to which the spokesmodel says, “Hey, I didn’t go to medical school for nothing.”
They all share a hearty laugh, and go back to their Sex in the City-esque repartee.
The thing that bothers me is that chick who brought up the product in the first place never gets to talk about it, and doesn’t seem bothered by the way her friend, who obviously has a compulsive need to be the center of attention and can’t wait for an opportunity to rub the fact that she went to medical school in all of their faces.
If I were the chick who got shouted down by Dr. Talksalot, I’d be all like, “Bitch, I was talking. Nobody asked for you to recite the press release you got from the pharmaceutical company along with your free samples, all right? We all know you went to medical school seeing as how you never talk about anything else.”
In any case, that’s it for this particular edition of pointlessness.
(Oh yeah, and be sure to click on the National Gorilla Suit Day banner over on the right. Thanks to Neil Gaiman for bringing this important holiday to my attention over on his blog.)
Monday, January 22, 2007
Thinking About Some Tall Tail
I didn’t do much for the first part of the day, which is hardly surprising, I guess.
In the afternoon, though, I had an appointment with the chiropractor (my last, as he’s not in my insurance’s network and I’ve used up the visits I pre-paid for using the last of my Flex money last year), and about an hour after that was over I had a meeting for work.
The meeting annoyed me, as it was at 3 and was set to last until 5, which meant that I’d have to deal with rush hour traffic to get home.
The other problem was that it was a bit before 2 when I got out of the chiropractor.
With traffic, it would take around 25 minutes to get from Leesburg to Reston, which is where the meeting was, which meant that it was kind of pointless to go home. I mean, what was I going to do for a half an hour?
Of course, the same question could be asked if I was out in the world.
Unable to answer it, I chose to just try to take my time getting to Reston.
It didn’t work; I arrived at around 2:35.
By taking my time moving around through the building (hitting the bathroom, taking a circuitous route, stopping at a vending machine), I managed to arrive at the conference room where the meeting was going to be held sometime around 2:47.
Finding it empty, I took a seat, ate the cookies I’d bought, and read an e-book on my PDA.
Eventually people started arriving and it was a matter of waiting for the people who were giving the presentation to arrive from HQ.
When they finally did, I have to say that I was surprised.
As I’ve mentioned before, with only a couple of notable exceptions, I don’t really go for tall women too much.
The reason is pretty obvious and straightforward; I’m not especially tall. I just think that paired with a tall woman I would look ridiculous, and I can’t help but assume that a tall woman would feel the same way about the notion of being paired with me, though in general I tend to assume that every woman, tall or otherwise, would find the notion of being paired with me ridiculous (Or is that revolting? It’s definitely a word that starts with R.), but I just think that in this particular case there’s an additional obstacle beyond my standard defects.
In any case, the person leading the meeting was a very tall (well over 6’), very attractive young woman, an attractive woman who had that indefinable something that makes me take a little more notice and which generates a little more interest from me than most tall woman do.
Just so we’re clear, I’m not saying that I don’t find woman who are tall attractive, I’m just saying that in general…well, I don’t know what I’m saying, exactly.
Whatever I am saying, in this case I found myself quite taken with this particular tall woman, and so I paid little attention to what was actually going on at the meeting, being far too busy looking at her (and thinking about the lack of a ring I had noticed during my initial ring check).
Oh well.
The drive home was pretty irritating, though made slightly less so by the fact that I took the Greenway home, which sped things up a little thanks to the higher speed limit, lack of stop lights, and lighter traffic.
Of course, the lighter traffic is the result of the fact that it costs over $3 to drive on the Greenway.
I usually only take the Greenway on Thursdays and Friday nights because of the cost, but apparently I’ve been using it a lot more than that lately as my checking account just got hit up for $35 to replenish my Smart Tag after today’s trip. Usually I can go about two months before needing to replenish it, but this time I only got 20 days out of the last $35.
I Need To Watch More Commercial-Free Television Department:
TV commercials bother me in general, but there have been a few that have really been getting on my nerves lately.
First up is that creepy Orville Redenbacher commercial. Who thought that was a good idea? It doesn’t make me want to buy popcorn, it makes me want to stock up on Holy Water.
And somehow putting the iPod on him in some desperate attempt to make it seem hip and current just makes it that much creepier.
All I can say is that there better not be any Wendy’s commercials featuring the reanimated corpse of Dave Thomas.
The other commercial, or rather, series of commercials, that bug me are the ones for either DirecTV or Dish Network (I forget which), in which we see some hapless loser engaging in some sort of misguided construction project while his wife and some friend of hers look on. The friend asks what the husband is doing, and the wife says, “He’s building his own comedy club,” or whatever, which prompts the friend to tell the wife how the Starz Comedy channel, obtained via satellite, can meet all of their comedy needs.
We’re given the number to call, and then something “funny” happens to the loser husband and the friend makes some sort of disparaging comment about him which points out what a loser he is.
Okay, here’s the thing that bugs me about the commercial. When finding out what kind of retarded project the husband is working on, the friend always brings up the relevant Starz channel by prefacing it with the question, “Doesn’t he know that he can get…?”
Here’s the thing: no, he doesn’t know because you two bitches are too busy belittling him and pointing out what an idiot he is to get around to fucking tell him.
I mean, the “friend” is the fucking Starz evangelist. Why can’t she haul her ass over and tell him about it? It’s obvious that telling the wife about it isn’t doing any good.
And finally, the other one that gets on my nerves is the PSP ad featuring the girl leaving a memory stick and a note saying “Come find me” on the sleeping form of some guy before slipping out the door. After waking (and most likely baking), said guy uses his PSP to watch video footage of the girl on the memory stick in order to track her down.
Here’s the thing. This is obviously the morning after a late-night hook up. Most guys in the demographic these young lovers belong to are unlikely to even bother calling the girl or sending her a text message after a one-night stand, let alone go on a damn treasure hunt to track her down. Having already had the treasure, why go out looking for it?
He’s more likely to use the memory stick to figure out where she’ll be so that he can avoid her.
Here’s a tip, honey. Despite whatever romantic notions might pop into your head in the post-coital afterglow of a drunken hook-up, your best bet is to head down to the free clinic for a shot of penicillin and a morning after pill; don’t waste time trying to be cute and quirky in the hopes that your two-pump chump will turn into Prince Charming and go on a quest to find you.
And you’d be better served using that memory stick and your PSP to listen to the Liz Phair song Fuck and Run, which will hopefully help you realize how hollow and meaningless it is to spread your legs for every guy who slips you a tab of Ecstasy.
Anyway, none of that is what really bugs me.
What bugs me is the once scene in which our modern day Romeo is searching for his skanky Juliet and runs past some other slacker playing a game on a PSP. The slacker playing on the PSP looks up and watches Romeo with an expression of total shock and dismay. Apparently seeing someone run past is the most startling thing he’s ever seen is his life.
Then again, given that this kid can’t venture out into the world without being immersed in a virtual world, I suppose that the notion of actual physical activity would be pretty shocking.
In any case, not much is new or interesting in my world, virtually or actually, so I guess that’s more than enough for one entry.
In the afternoon, though, I had an appointment with the chiropractor (my last, as he’s not in my insurance’s network and I’ve used up the visits I pre-paid for using the last of my Flex money last year), and about an hour after that was over I had a meeting for work.
The meeting annoyed me, as it was at 3 and was set to last until 5, which meant that I’d have to deal with rush hour traffic to get home.
The other problem was that it was a bit before 2 when I got out of the chiropractor.
With traffic, it would take around 25 minutes to get from Leesburg to Reston, which is where the meeting was, which meant that it was kind of pointless to go home. I mean, what was I going to do for a half an hour?
Of course, the same question could be asked if I was out in the world.
Unable to answer it, I chose to just try to take my time getting to Reston.
It didn’t work; I arrived at around 2:35.
By taking my time moving around through the building (hitting the bathroom, taking a circuitous route, stopping at a vending machine), I managed to arrive at the conference room where the meeting was going to be held sometime around 2:47.
Finding it empty, I took a seat, ate the cookies I’d bought, and read an e-book on my PDA.
Eventually people started arriving and it was a matter of waiting for the people who were giving the presentation to arrive from HQ.
When they finally did, I have to say that I was surprised.
As I’ve mentioned before, with only a couple of notable exceptions, I don’t really go for tall women too much.
The reason is pretty obvious and straightforward; I’m not especially tall. I just think that paired with a tall woman I would look ridiculous, and I can’t help but assume that a tall woman would feel the same way about the notion of being paired with me, though in general I tend to assume that every woman, tall or otherwise, would find the notion of being paired with me ridiculous (Or is that revolting? It’s definitely a word that starts with R.), but I just think that in this particular case there’s an additional obstacle beyond my standard defects.
In any case, the person leading the meeting was a very tall (well over 6’), very attractive young woman, an attractive woman who had that indefinable something that makes me take a little more notice and which generates a little more interest from me than most tall woman do.
Just so we’re clear, I’m not saying that I don’t find woman who are tall attractive, I’m just saying that in general…well, I don’t know what I’m saying, exactly.
Whatever I am saying, in this case I found myself quite taken with this particular tall woman, and so I paid little attention to what was actually going on at the meeting, being far too busy looking at her (and thinking about the lack of a ring I had noticed during my initial ring check).
Oh well.
The drive home was pretty irritating, though made slightly less so by the fact that I took the Greenway home, which sped things up a little thanks to the higher speed limit, lack of stop lights, and lighter traffic.
Of course, the lighter traffic is the result of the fact that it costs over $3 to drive on the Greenway.
I usually only take the Greenway on Thursdays and Friday nights because of the cost, but apparently I’ve been using it a lot more than that lately as my checking account just got hit up for $35 to replenish my Smart Tag after today’s trip. Usually I can go about two months before needing to replenish it, but this time I only got 20 days out of the last $35.
I Need To Watch More Commercial-Free Television Department:
TV commercials bother me in general, but there have been a few that have really been getting on my nerves lately.
First up is that creepy Orville Redenbacher commercial. Who thought that was a good idea? It doesn’t make me want to buy popcorn, it makes me want to stock up on Holy Water.
And somehow putting the iPod on him in some desperate attempt to make it seem hip and current just makes it that much creepier.
All I can say is that there better not be any Wendy’s commercials featuring the reanimated corpse of Dave Thomas.
The other commercial, or rather, series of commercials, that bug me are the ones for either DirecTV or Dish Network (I forget which), in which we see some hapless loser engaging in some sort of misguided construction project while his wife and some friend of hers look on. The friend asks what the husband is doing, and the wife says, “He’s building his own comedy club,” or whatever, which prompts the friend to tell the wife how the Starz Comedy channel, obtained via satellite, can meet all of their comedy needs.
We’re given the number to call, and then something “funny” happens to the loser husband and the friend makes some sort of disparaging comment about him which points out what a loser he is.
Okay, here’s the thing that bugs me about the commercial. When finding out what kind of retarded project the husband is working on, the friend always brings up the relevant Starz channel by prefacing it with the question, “Doesn’t he know that he can get…?”
Here’s the thing: no, he doesn’t know because you two bitches are too busy belittling him and pointing out what an idiot he is to get around to fucking tell him.
I mean, the “friend” is the fucking Starz evangelist. Why can’t she haul her ass over and tell him about it? It’s obvious that telling the wife about it isn’t doing any good.
And finally, the other one that gets on my nerves is the PSP ad featuring the girl leaving a memory stick and a note saying “Come find me” on the sleeping form of some guy before slipping out the door. After waking (and most likely baking), said guy uses his PSP to watch video footage of the girl on the memory stick in order to track her down.
Here’s the thing. This is obviously the morning after a late-night hook up. Most guys in the demographic these young lovers belong to are unlikely to even bother calling the girl or sending her a text message after a one-night stand, let alone go on a damn treasure hunt to track her down. Having already had the treasure, why go out looking for it?
He’s more likely to use the memory stick to figure out where she’ll be so that he can avoid her.
Here’s a tip, honey. Despite whatever romantic notions might pop into your head in the post-coital afterglow of a drunken hook-up, your best bet is to head down to the free clinic for a shot of penicillin and a morning after pill; don’t waste time trying to be cute and quirky in the hopes that your two-pump chump will turn into Prince Charming and go on a quest to find you.
And you’d be better served using that memory stick and your PSP to listen to the Liz Phair song Fuck and Run, which will hopefully help you realize how hollow and meaningless it is to spread your legs for every guy who slips you a tab of Ecstasy.
Anyway, none of that is what really bugs me.
What bugs me is the once scene in which our modern day Romeo is searching for his skanky Juliet and runs past some other slacker playing a game on a PSP. The slacker playing on the PSP looks up and watches Romeo with an expression of total shock and dismay. Apparently seeing someone run past is the most startling thing he’s ever seen is his life.
Then again, given that this kid can’t venture out into the world without being immersed in a virtual world, I suppose that the notion of actual physical activity would be pretty shocking.
In any case, not much is new or interesting in my world, virtually or actually, so I guess that’s more than enough for one entry.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
Have I Ever Mentioned That I Think That People Suck?
So it’s finally “winter” around here, with a rather pathetic amount of snow drifting down in tiny, irritating little flakes. I’m sure there have been a bunch of accidents already and that school closures have already been announced for tomorrow.
In the past couple of days, as I had been a while back, I’ve been having little visions and dreams of winter – real winter – every so often.
I’ve come to the conclusion that, while I hate it, winter is just built into me in some fashion, as if at the very core of my being I am a creature of winter, and that no matter how much I may reject it, there will always be some deep-seated longing for the bitter cold, the mountainous drifts of snow, and the long, dark winters of my youth and of my ancestors.
Or something.
Anyway, you can go here to see what winter is looking like back where I’m from in real(ish) time.
They’ve actually been pretty light on the snowfall so far, and only recently got any snow (apart from the snow they had back when I was there in October, which had mostly melted by the time I left).
It is, however, very cold there, apparently.
My mother called earlier today and said that she hadn’t gone to church because it was only four degrees out.
Seeing an opportunity to get in a jibe at her relatively spotty record of church attendance lately, despite her seeing the fact that her new apartment put her within easy walking distance of church as a plus, I said, “Well, it’ll be a lot warmer in Hell, won’t it?”
It’s the ridiculousness of me chiding someone – especially my mother – about not going to church that makes me laugh every time I think about it.
After I got off the phone I gave the condo a much-needed deep(ish) cleaning, and now here I am.
My three days at work were pretty irritating overall. Scott was out sick with food poisoning on Thursday, which made for a long, boring day with only Simon to talk to. Not to bash Simon (much), but Scott and I have been working together for over four years, and have a lot of common (geeky) interests, so naturally he and I get along a little better.
Scott was in on Friday, but Simon was out, because apparently it takes twelve and a half hours to replace a dead battery. Not sure how that works.
I mean, even allowing for the time it takes for an auto supply store to open, we’re only talking about a few hours, and with a shift as long as ours is there’s still plenty of time to come in and work even if you’ve missed a few hours. Hell, even if you miss six hours there’s still the remaining six and a half that you could come in for.
But whatever.
In any case, Scott was scheduled off on Saturday, and at around 4:30 our boss came around and said to Simon, “Since you’ve worked so hard this week, why don’t you take over and let Jon go home early.”
I guess actually showing up for work does have its advantages.
Hmm, I think I sound more bitter than I actually am, but it’s just that it’s three days of work; how hard can it be to be someplace three days in a row?
Further, how hard can it be to be someplace three days in a row on time?
I just don’t understand being late. Sure, I understand that things can happen that are unavoidable and will keep you from being on time, but I’m talking about being consistently late. Like two days out of three, with the third day being in just barely on time.
Honestly, I just don’t get it.
I’m sure people will argue that, unlike me, they have lives or whatever, but so what? Lots of people have lives and manage to be on time. And how much of a life do you have in the hours before 6 AM?
But, again, whatever. People are going to do what they’re going to do, so fuck ‘em, I guess.
Still, while I’m bitching about people and how much they suck, I should mention what happened yesterday morning at work.
It was one of those mornings in which everyone was quiet. No one was saying anything. The only sound was the occasional clicking of mouse buttons or the clacking of keyboards, and the constant dull hiss of the air handler.
It was like heaven.
And it went on for an astonishingly long period of time, but when it ended, it ended with a cataclysmic bang as four of the people who annoy me most, the people who talk the most and the loudest – two of whom had been working on shifts that didn’t intersect with mine for months, though that has now changed – arrived simultaneously and completely shattered the silence.
It was like waking from a beautiful dream into a horrible nightmare.
In any case, I suppose that’s more than enough random bitching and complaining about pointless nonsense, so I guess I’ll bring this to a close.
In the past couple of days, as I had been a while back, I’ve been having little visions and dreams of winter – real winter – every so often.
I’ve come to the conclusion that, while I hate it, winter is just built into me in some fashion, as if at the very core of my being I am a creature of winter, and that no matter how much I may reject it, there will always be some deep-seated longing for the bitter cold, the mountainous drifts of snow, and the long, dark winters of my youth and of my ancestors.
Or something.
Anyway, you can go here to see what winter is looking like back where I’m from in real(ish) time.
They’ve actually been pretty light on the snowfall so far, and only recently got any snow (apart from the snow they had back when I was there in October, which had mostly melted by the time I left).
It is, however, very cold there, apparently.
My mother called earlier today and said that she hadn’t gone to church because it was only four degrees out.
Seeing an opportunity to get in a jibe at her relatively spotty record of church attendance lately, despite her seeing the fact that her new apartment put her within easy walking distance of church as a plus, I said, “Well, it’ll be a lot warmer in Hell, won’t it?”
It’s the ridiculousness of me chiding someone – especially my mother – about not going to church that makes me laugh every time I think about it.
After I got off the phone I gave the condo a much-needed deep(ish) cleaning, and now here I am.
My three days at work were pretty irritating overall. Scott was out sick with food poisoning on Thursday, which made for a long, boring day with only Simon to talk to. Not to bash Simon (much), but Scott and I have been working together for over four years, and have a lot of common (geeky) interests, so naturally he and I get along a little better.
Scott was in on Friday, but Simon was out, because apparently it takes twelve and a half hours to replace a dead battery. Not sure how that works.
I mean, even allowing for the time it takes for an auto supply store to open, we’re only talking about a few hours, and with a shift as long as ours is there’s still plenty of time to come in and work even if you’ve missed a few hours. Hell, even if you miss six hours there’s still the remaining six and a half that you could come in for.
But whatever.
In any case, Scott was scheduled off on Saturday, and at around 4:30 our boss came around and said to Simon, “Since you’ve worked so hard this week, why don’t you take over and let Jon go home early.”
I guess actually showing up for work does have its advantages.
Hmm, I think I sound more bitter than I actually am, but it’s just that it’s three days of work; how hard can it be to be someplace three days in a row?
Further, how hard can it be to be someplace three days in a row on time?
I just don’t understand being late. Sure, I understand that things can happen that are unavoidable and will keep you from being on time, but I’m talking about being consistently late. Like two days out of three, with the third day being in just barely on time.
Honestly, I just don’t get it.
I’m sure people will argue that, unlike me, they have lives or whatever, but so what? Lots of people have lives and manage to be on time. And how much of a life do you have in the hours before 6 AM?
But, again, whatever. People are going to do what they’re going to do, so fuck ‘em, I guess.
Still, while I’m bitching about people and how much they suck, I should mention what happened yesterday morning at work.
It was one of those mornings in which everyone was quiet. No one was saying anything. The only sound was the occasional clicking of mouse buttons or the clacking of keyboards, and the constant dull hiss of the air handler.
It was like heaven.
And it went on for an astonishingly long period of time, but when it ended, it ended with a cataclysmic bang as four of the people who annoy me most, the people who talk the most and the loudest – two of whom had been working on shifts that didn’t intersect with mine for months, though that has now changed – arrived simultaneously and completely shattered the silence.
It was like waking from a beautiful dream into a horrible nightmare.
In any case, I suppose that’s more than enough random bitching and complaining about pointless nonsense, so I guess I’ll bring this to a close.
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