For no reason that I can determine, I woke up at around 2:30 this morning.
I stayed in bed for a while trying to get back to sleep before my bladder induced me to get up. After attending to that, I got back into bed and spent some time lying in the dark before deciding to get up again and have a cigarette.
Once that was done, I did some meditation for about twenty minutes.
By that time it was around 3:30, which was only a half an hour earlier than I was planning to get up anyway, so I said, "Fuck it," got up, got dressed in my workout attire, and proceeded to engage in a workout that let me know in no uncertain terms that while I mostly feel okay, I'm still not 100% recovered from whatever illness struck me down on Monday.
Having an extra half hour to kill after finishing my exhausting workout, I sat down to watch the recorded episode of The Office before showering and getting on with my day.
While at work, my boss, in a post-staff meeting discussion, talked about some of her plans for our group, which included getting my co-worker promoted to the same level I just got promoted to, while providing some - frankly infuriating, though I won't get into that - details about the process of getting me promoted.
Her goal is for both of us to be Managers (my promotion will give me the title of "Manager," but I won't actually be managing anyone initially) and, eventually, have Analysts reporting to us.
My co-worker said, "I just want to manage projects. Jon can manage the Analysts."
I said, "I just want to manage our internal processes."
The boss said, "You'll both shut the fuck up and do whatever I tell you to do."
****
As it was the Friday before Halloween, the office was going to be overrun by candy-seeking hordes of children at 2 PM.
Me: By the way, I'm bailing before the kids show up.
Boss: You and me both.
****
I decided to take Monday and Tuesday off, mostly just because, but in part because I want to stay up late on Monday and get a jump on National Novel Writing Month, and devote much of Tuesday to writing.
Because I'll be writing my latest novel, my updates here will either be even less frequent than they have been, or more frequent, in the form of excerpts from each day's writing.
Personally, I don't see any advantage to either option, so I'm not sure which one I'll opt for.
Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts
Showing posts with label halloween. Show all posts
Friday, October 28, 2011
Saturday, November 01, 2008
There Is No Escape
My plans for yesterday all revolved around not having to deal with children going around begging for candy.
In this regard, my plans were an utter failure.
At 3:00 employees brought their kids in to work and went around from floor to floor hitting up people for candy.
I had no idea that this was going to happen, so I had no candy to give out.
No one actually hit me up for any, but as one group went past my cube, I heard this little girl say, in a voice dripping with contempt, “No candy here.”
Snot-nosed little – I wanted to respond with, “Well how the hell was I supposed to know? This is a place of business, not a damn candy store!”
Admittedly, a candy store is also a place of business, but that’s not the line of business I work in, and is hardly the point.
Of course I didn’t say that, but I did clear the hell out of there as soon as my boss said I could take off early if I wanted, and given the child infestation, I very much did.
After I got home I sat around for a while doing the usual. I had decided to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno (more on that in a separate post) as my means of avoiding the candy-seeking horde that, unlike the one at work, I knew was coming. Not taking any chances, I left before it started to get dark, even though the movie wouldn’t start for another two hours.
Despite the fact that I had zero interest in looking into the precious little faces of the ravening horde, I had no intention of screwing them out of their full sugar fix, so I set out a bowl of candy before I left (more on that in a bit).
After 36 years spent doing so quite frequently, I’m accustomed to being wrong about things, and in fact I usually anticipate that such will be the case, but I wasn’t prepared for being wrong about so many things.
In the first place, I thought that it would take me anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to get to the Brambleton Town Center, where the theater is located. It took me 10 minutes.
I had intended to kill the time – not counting the time I saved in getting there – by first going to the AT&T store and seeing if they were selling the Fuze, which is the AT&T-branded version of the HTC Touch Pro, the sexy new cell phone that I intend to buy, and then getting something to eat.
The only problem with this plan was that there is no AT&T store there.
This was infuriating for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that I know there used to be one there. Evidently it has since closed. Stupid economy.
I know that there was one there because I distinctly recall commenting to Scott one time when we went to see a movie there that it was funny that I could barely get service on my AT&T phone there, given the presence of an AT&T store.
And of course, my timing was such that I was there for the peak of activity in the trick-or-treating that was going on in the Town Center, so I found myself once again failing to avoid kids in costumes going around looking for candy.
I wandered around for a while, dodging miniature Spider-Men, Hulks, pirates, genies, princesses, and so forth, then decided to try out the Thai place for dinner. I figured it would be busy and that it would take a fair amount of time.
Wrong again.
For a while I was the only patron, and the whole affair took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
As an aside, I had the “Drunken Noodle,” which, despite sounding like a less risqué term for “Whiskey Dick,” was actually very good (and very spicy).
After that I wandered around aimlessly some more – at least the kids were gone by this point – and, as it was surprisingly warm out, considering how cool the day had started out, I decided I’d drop my jacket off in my car.
This was, of course, a mistake, as it began to cool rapidly. At least walking back to my car to get my jacket ate up some time.
Eventually it was time for the movie, and finally, for the first time of the evening, I was right about something: the theater wasn’t terribly busy. I had assumed it wouldn’t be, given that most people were probably out at parties or taking their kids from door to door in a quest for sugar.
So score one for Jon.
When I got home I found that all of the candy was gone…along with the bowl.
I had assumed that someone would come along and take it, which is why I bought a cheap bowl specifically for that purpose rather than using one of my good bowls, but this was something that I had hoped I’d be wrong about. I can only hope that it happened late in the evening, and that some less greedy kids actually got to have some of the candy.
I noticed later that the empty bowl was actually left on one of the big rocks in the cul-de-sac, so I was at least wrong about someone keeping the bowl.
And that was my Halloween.
I did kinda-sorta dress up for the day. I went in to work wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and my biker jacket, and if anyone had asked – though no one did – I would have said that I was in costume as “Myself, ten years ago.”
Of course, the costume was slightly inaccurate, in that I wasn’t wearing glasses and I wasn’t hungover.
In this regard, my plans were an utter failure.
At 3:00 employees brought their kids in to work and went around from floor to floor hitting up people for candy.
I had no idea that this was going to happen, so I had no candy to give out.
No one actually hit me up for any, but as one group went past my cube, I heard this little girl say, in a voice dripping with contempt, “No candy here.”
Snot-nosed little – I wanted to respond with, “Well how the hell was I supposed to know? This is a place of business, not a damn candy store!”
Admittedly, a candy store is also a place of business, but that’s not the line of business I work in, and is hardly the point.
Of course I didn’t say that, but I did clear the hell out of there as soon as my boss said I could take off early if I wanted, and given the child infestation, I very much did.
After I got home I sat around for a while doing the usual. I had decided to see Zack and Miri Make a Porno (more on that in a separate post) as my means of avoiding the candy-seeking horde that, unlike the one at work, I knew was coming. Not taking any chances, I left before it started to get dark, even though the movie wouldn’t start for another two hours.
Despite the fact that I had zero interest in looking into the precious little faces of the ravening horde, I had no intention of screwing them out of their full sugar fix, so I set out a bowl of candy before I left (more on that in a bit).
After 36 years spent doing so quite frequently, I’m accustomed to being wrong about things, and in fact I usually anticipate that such will be the case, but I wasn’t prepared for being wrong about so many things.
In the first place, I thought that it would take me anywhere from 15 to 20 minutes to get to the Brambleton Town Center, where the theater is located. It took me 10 minutes.
I had intended to kill the time – not counting the time I saved in getting there – by first going to the AT&T store and seeing if they were selling the Fuze, which is the AT&T-branded version of the HTC Touch Pro, the sexy new cell phone that I intend to buy, and then getting something to eat.
The only problem with this plan was that there is no AT&T store there.
This was infuriating for multiple reasons, not the least of which is that I know there used to be one there. Evidently it has since closed. Stupid economy.
I know that there was one there because I distinctly recall commenting to Scott one time when we went to see a movie there that it was funny that I could barely get service on my AT&T phone there, given the presence of an AT&T store.
And of course, my timing was such that I was there for the peak of activity in the trick-or-treating that was going on in the Town Center, so I found myself once again failing to avoid kids in costumes going around looking for candy.
I wandered around for a while, dodging miniature Spider-Men, Hulks, pirates, genies, princesses, and so forth, then decided to try out the Thai place for dinner. I figured it would be busy and that it would take a fair amount of time.
Wrong again.
For a while I was the only patron, and the whole affair took about 20 minutes from start to finish.
As an aside, I had the “Drunken Noodle,” which, despite sounding like a less risqué term for “Whiskey Dick,” was actually very good (and very spicy).
After that I wandered around aimlessly some more – at least the kids were gone by this point – and, as it was surprisingly warm out, considering how cool the day had started out, I decided I’d drop my jacket off in my car.
This was, of course, a mistake, as it began to cool rapidly. At least walking back to my car to get my jacket ate up some time.
Eventually it was time for the movie, and finally, for the first time of the evening, I was right about something: the theater wasn’t terribly busy. I had assumed it wouldn’t be, given that most people were probably out at parties or taking their kids from door to door in a quest for sugar.
So score one for Jon.
When I got home I found that all of the candy was gone…along with the bowl.
I had assumed that someone would come along and take it, which is why I bought a cheap bowl specifically for that purpose rather than using one of my good bowls, but this was something that I had hoped I’d be wrong about. I can only hope that it happened late in the evening, and that some less greedy kids actually got to have some of the candy.
I noticed later that the empty bowl was actually left on one of the big rocks in the cul-de-sac, so I was at least wrong about someone keeping the bowl.
And that was my Halloween.
I did kinda-sorta dress up for the day. I went in to work wearing jeans, a black T-shirt, and my biker jacket, and if anyone had asked – though no one did – I would have said that I was in costume as “Myself, ten years ago.”
Of course, the costume was slightly inaccurate, in that I wasn’t wearing glasses and I wasn’t hungover.
Friday, October 31, 2008
In The Streets On Halloween The Spirits Will Arise
In honor of the day, I give you Halloween, as performed by the German band Helloween:
Yes, it's cheesy, and it's cheesy in a way that's only possible for a German metal band in the 80s.
Still, I have sort of a soft spot for Helloween. Despite some language barriers that can lead to some truly cheesetastic lyrics, overall I enjoy most of their songs. While in many ways their earnestness leads inexorably to cheesiness, I still kind of admire them for it, and it's clear that they do have a sense of humor about it all.
The song is from the album Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1, which, along with Part 2, serves as a sort of semi-concept album, in that there is a specific narrative woven into many (but not all) of the songs. The full version of Halloween is 13 minutes long, and contains a lot of elements of the narrative, which were edited out in order to cut the song down to a manageable length. The end result is...well, not so good as the full-length original.
Here's a special bonus Helloween video, Dr. Stein, from Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2:
In any case, Happy Halloween everyone. Have fun, be safe, and remember not to eat any unwrapped candy, and watch out for razor blades in those caramel apples.
Yes, it's cheesy, and it's cheesy in a way that's only possible for a German metal band in the 80s.
Still, I have sort of a soft spot for Helloween. Despite some language barriers that can lead to some truly cheesetastic lyrics, overall I enjoy most of their songs. While in many ways their earnestness leads inexorably to cheesiness, I still kind of admire them for it, and it's clear that they do have a sense of humor about it all.
The song is from the album Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1, which, along with Part 2, serves as a sort of semi-concept album, in that there is a specific narrative woven into many (but not all) of the songs. The full version of Halloween is 13 minutes long, and contains a lot of elements of the narrative, which were edited out in order to cut the song down to a manageable length. The end result is...well, not so good as the full-length original.
Here's a special bonus Helloween video, Dr. Stein, from Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 2:
In any case, Happy Halloween everyone. Have fun, be safe, and remember not to eat any unwrapped candy, and watch out for razor blades in those caramel apples.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Happy Give In To Despair Day!
The one thing worse than watching a really bad movie is watching most of a really bad movie and then not getting to see how it ends.
After all, while you really have no reason to care – because it’s awful – you can’t help but feel like you’ve been cheated.
(Even more than you’ve already been cheated by the lousy story, horrible acting, and sub-BBC science fiction TV show from the 70s special effects.)
Such was the case for me today with the movie Alien Abduction.
Among the channels I get that are in HD is Universal HD, a channel that’s a hodgepodge of HD programming such as old TV shows that have been upconverted to HD, concerts by bands like Poison (seriously), and movies that are either 10+ years old, which were never exactly blockbusters to begin with, or are of the direct-to-video variety.
Because it’s nearly Halloween, for the past week or so they’ve been airing a lot of low-budget horror movies.
Like Alien Abduction.
While flipping through the channels last night I encountered Alien Abduction already well underway. I could tell right away that it was really bad, but the protagonist was a chick who was cute, in a low-budget crappy horror movie kind of way, and seemed to spend most of her time wandering around in an extremely short hospital gown.
The shortness of the gown piqued my interest, as this seemed like the sort of movie in which the female protagonist would spend some amount of time wearing even less than that (FYI, my suspicions in this regard were correct), so I checked the guide to see if it was going to be on again. It was, at 3 AM, so I set the DVR to record it.
Today, after it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to motivate myself to do anything productive, I decided to watch it.
And it was just as bad – possibly worse – as I thought it would be.
However, due to some sort of glitch – which I think I’ve figured out the cause of – the recording cut off at about 60 minutes into the 90 minute runtime.
So I was robbed of the “thrilling conclusion.”
Granted, all I really wanted from it was some T&A, which I got, but I can’t help but feel the need to see how it ends.
Luckily it’s on again tonight, so I’ve set it to record once more.
Then I’ll be able to watch the ending, at which point I will, no doubt, wonder why I bothered.
As for the “glitch,” I think this is what happened.
Earlier today, before I started watching the recording, I found that the movie was on yet again, and was at about the hour mark.
When I went to the list of recordings to select the movie, it presented me with option of “Resume Play,” rather than just “Play.” When I did that, it started playing from the point that I’d just seen it at while flipping through the channels, so I hit “Stop.” I went back in and hit “Play.” I think that somehow screwed up the recording, causing it to delete everything after the point at which I’d hit “Stop.”
That’s my theory, anyway. We’ll see what happens with tonight’s recording, which should run uninterrupted.
As mentioned, I didn’t do much that was productive today. I decided to declare this “Give In To Despair Day” and just forget about even trying to accomplish anything.
Tomorrow will, of course, be “New Comics Day.”
Thursday will just be Thursday, because giving each day of the week some kind of special name would just be stupid.
(Though technically Thursday is also “Job Fair Day.”)
I have no idea if I’m going to get trick or treaters tomorrow night, but I bought some candy just in case.
The only time in my adult life that I’ve actually gotten trick or treaters was when I lived in Minnesota.
It was a Sunday, and my roommates and I had just gotten back from a trip up to the cities where we’d attended a Halloween party and gotten suitably trashed.
We’d gotten back to Red Wing late in the afternoon and were all sitting around feeling like we’d been up all night drinking (imagine that), and as it was starting to get dark, a thought occurred to me and I said, “Crap! It’s Halloween!”
I made a quick run to the store and bought some candy, and got back just in time for the parade of costumed kids.
I left one little girl paralyzed with indecision by responding, to her “Twick or tweat” with “Hmm, okay…trick!”
She stared up at me in helpless panic until I said, “I’m only teasing,” and then gave her extra candy to alleviate her trauma.
While I was writing this, Kathleen called, offering to stop by quickly to give me some feedback on my new résumé. Actually, she called before I started writing this, but I was downstairs and the cell phone was up here, so I had no idea until she called again.
I got three e-mails from three different recruiters, each one trying to fill the exact same job.
Unfortunately, it’s that same contract job that I was contacted about the day after the layoff.
And that’s pretty much been my day. I didn’t totally give in to despair, as I did update the résumé with some of Kathleen’s suggestions, and I did at least shower and get dressed, and even go for a walk, but overall, I wasn’t terribly productive and didn’t see the point in even trying to be productive.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
After all, while you really have no reason to care – because it’s awful – you can’t help but feel like you’ve been cheated.
(Even more than you’ve already been cheated by the lousy story, horrible acting, and sub-BBC science fiction TV show from the 70s special effects.)
Such was the case for me today with the movie Alien Abduction.
Among the channels I get that are in HD is Universal HD, a channel that’s a hodgepodge of HD programming such as old TV shows that have been upconverted to HD, concerts by bands like Poison (seriously), and movies that are either 10+ years old, which were never exactly blockbusters to begin with, or are of the direct-to-video variety.
Because it’s nearly Halloween, for the past week or so they’ve been airing a lot of low-budget horror movies.
Like Alien Abduction.
While flipping through the channels last night I encountered Alien Abduction already well underway. I could tell right away that it was really bad, but the protagonist was a chick who was cute, in a low-budget crappy horror movie kind of way, and seemed to spend most of her time wandering around in an extremely short hospital gown.
The shortness of the gown piqued my interest, as this seemed like the sort of movie in which the female protagonist would spend some amount of time wearing even less than that (FYI, my suspicions in this regard were correct), so I checked the guide to see if it was going to be on again. It was, at 3 AM, so I set the DVR to record it.
Today, after it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to motivate myself to do anything productive, I decided to watch it.
And it was just as bad – possibly worse – as I thought it would be.
However, due to some sort of glitch – which I think I’ve figured out the cause of – the recording cut off at about 60 minutes into the 90 minute runtime.
So I was robbed of the “thrilling conclusion.”
Granted, all I really wanted from it was some T&A, which I got, but I can’t help but feel the need to see how it ends.
Luckily it’s on again tonight, so I’ve set it to record once more.
Then I’ll be able to watch the ending, at which point I will, no doubt, wonder why I bothered.
As for the “glitch,” I think this is what happened.
Earlier today, before I started watching the recording, I found that the movie was on yet again, and was at about the hour mark.
When I went to the list of recordings to select the movie, it presented me with option of “Resume Play,” rather than just “Play.” When I did that, it started playing from the point that I’d just seen it at while flipping through the channels, so I hit “Stop.” I went back in and hit “Play.” I think that somehow screwed up the recording, causing it to delete everything after the point at which I’d hit “Stop.”
That’s my theory, anyway. We’ll see what happens with tonight’s recording, which should run uninterrupted.
As mentioned, I didn’t do much that was productive today. I decided to declare this “Give In To Despair Day” and just forget about even trying to accomplish anything.
Tomorrow will, of course, be “New Comics Day.”
Thursday will just be Thursday, because giving each day of the week some kind of special name would just be stupid.
(Though technically Thursday is also “Job Fair Day.”)
I have no idea if I’m going to get trick or treaters tomorrow night, but I bought some candy just in case.
The only time in my adult life that I’ve actually gotten trick or treaters was when I lived in Minnesota.
It was a Sunday, and my roommates and I had just gotten back from a trip up to the cities where we’d attended a Halloween party and gotten suitably trashed.
We’d gotten back to Red Wing late in the afternoon and were all sitting around feeling like we’d been up all night drinking (imagine that), and as it was starting to get dark, a thought occurred to me and I said, “Crap! It’s Halloween!”
I made a quick run to the store and bought some candy, and got back just in time for the parade of costumed kids.
I left one little girl paralyzed with indecision by responding, to her “Twick or tweat” with “Hmm, okay…trick!”
She stared up at me in helpless panic until I said, “I’m only teasing,” and then gave her extra candy to alleviate her trauma.
While I was writing this, Kathleen called, offering to stop by quickly to give me some feedback on my new résumé. Actually, she called before I started writing this, but I was downstairs and the cell phone was up here, so I had no idea until she called again.
I got three e-mails from three different recruiters, each one trying to fill the exact same job.
Unfortunately, it’s that same contract job that I was contacted about the day after the layoff.
And that’s pretty much been my day. I didn’t totally give in to despair, as I did update the résumé with some of Kathleen’s suggestions, and I did at least shower and get dressed, and even go for a walk, but overall, I wasn’t terribly productive and didn’t see the point in even trying to be productive.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
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