Building To A Pissed Off Crescendo

On Thursday I woke up at 3:14 AM, looked at the clock, saw that the little icon indicating that the alarm is turned on was present, realized that this meant that it was Thursday, said, “Son of a bitch,” and went back to sleep.
By the time the alarm went off an hour and forty-six minutes later my mood hadn’t improved at all.
I got up and angrily put my contacts in, angrily showered and shaved, angrily dressed, and angrily made my way to the car, which I angrily drove to the gas station where I angrily filled my tank.
Still, while I was clearly in a very bad mood, the Universe decided it wasn’t quite enough, so about five miles into my (angry) drive to work my car started making a weird noise.
Because that was just what I fucking needed.
The sound coming from the car was pretty much drowned out the rest of the way by the sound of me grinding my teeth.
Once I got to work, things just went downhill, as the NOC was unusually loud and inane, not offering me the opportunity to ease into the irritation that all of the other people working there invariably bring.
When I was getting the shift hand off from Mitzi it was like being in one of those Cingular – now AT&T – dropped call commercials.
I’m serious, at certain points her lips were moving but no discernible sound was coming forth.
It’s not like I really needed anything from her – it’s easier and more fruitful to just read the ticket notes – but it was just one more bit of aggravation that I didn’t need.
As the day wore on my mood didn’t improve much – the fact that I was busy didn’t help matters – particularly with the thought of whatever the hell was wrong with my car looming over my head.
Throughout the day, as people saw my new phone, every single one asked, “Why didn’t you wait and get an iPhone?”
Given how belligerent I felt, I wanted to reply, “Fuck you, that’s why.”
I didn’t, instead saying that I simply had no interest in buying one, which is true enough, and pretty much all I feel the need to say on the subject.
On the drive home I noted that, apart from making the noise, nothing else weird.
I attempted the “maybe it’ll fix itself overnight” approach, which didn’t work, and drove it in to work again on Friday, but decided that after I drove it home I wouldn’t push my luck any further, and so I caught a ride with Brian on Saturday, and made an appointment to bring my car in on Monday.
The thought of having to get up early on Monday to bring the car in and the inevitable hassles that would result from whatever is undoubtedly majorly fucked-up with it, loomed over my Sunday festering and I often found myself nearly as pissed as I had been on Thursday.
I have since dropped the car off to be checked out and to have whatever maintenance service needs to be done at this point.
Turns out said service is the 30,000 mile service, which encompasses a bunch of crap, and may cost as much as $450.
Four. Hundred. Fifty. Dollars.
My level of pissed-offedness shot through the roof at that point, and I think the service guy – who was larger than I am – was actually frightened by the look I gave him, as he scrambled to justify the costs.
*Sigh*
As it stands, the very earliest I can expect them to be done is by 4, as the service alone will take several hours. I’m clinging to the pathetic hope that the noise was caused by something that will be addressed as part of the 30,000 mile service, but I know better than that.
Whatever is wrong should be covered by the warranty, though I’m sure they’ll try to find a way to weasel out of that.
Scott and I had plans to catch one of the Tranformers showings tonight, but I don’t know if that’s going to happen, since I may be without a vehicle.
During my Sunday fester, I did actually mess around with some creative endeavors, working on a picture that has yet to be completed, and trying out a couple of tutorials, one of which resulted in this rather cliché manipulation of a photo of Scarlett Johansson:




And that’s pretty much all that’s been going on.

Jon And The Quest For The Gray Fleece

I didn’t sleep well at all over the weekend, so last night found a very tired Jon climbing into bed. Despite this, I still managed to wake up at around 8, though I refused to get out of bed and insisted on sleeping. This was made a challenge by the fact that stupid new dog had been left alone again, and so was yipping its worthless head off.
I think my mind has been colored a bit much by all of the Fables I’ve been reading lately, as I took a great deal of pleasure in imagining myself throwing on the Witching Cloak, grabbing the Vorpal Sword, teleporting down there and putting an end to the barking with a quick Snicker-Snack.
Of course, as satisfying as that would be, I recognized the silliness of it, and soon managed to tune out the yipping and drift back to sleep, waking again a bit before 10.
After – reluctantly – getting up, talking to my mother, and making myself some blunch, I said, as I am particularly wont to do on Sundays, “Screw this,” and went back to bed for another hour and a half.
And now I’m up and still tired.
I need to do the laundry, but can’t build up the motivation, and there are some pictures I could be working on, but, well, it’s Sunday. Sunday isn’t just my day to rest, it’s my day to fester.
The company I work for frequently gives out bits of company-branded merchandise to all of us. It’s done to boost morale and company loyalty, and to make us forget that they’re keeping us in a constant state of uncertainty about the company’s future plans and what, if any, roles we’ll have in that future.
The thinking is, “Give them a logo jacket. It’ll take their minds off wondering when we’re going to ship their jobs to India.”
(As an aside, it baffles me that they can complain so much about the rumor mill, when simple open and honest communication about what’s being planned, even if that information is only the broad strokes – we’re perfectly capable of understanding that some things can’t be revealed and that many plans aren’t final – could easily cut the number of rumors by at least 50%. Consider the sale of the Reston facility. For weeks we’d heard through various grapevines that the place had been sold, and we were seeing people being moved. Meanwhile, not only had we not been officially informed of where – if anywhere – we were going, we hadn’t even been officially informed that the place had been sold. For weeks this went on. I don’t understand how hard it would have been to say, “Hey, as you’ve probably guessed, we sold the building. We’re still trying to figure out where to relocate you, but don’t worry, we’re working on it.” Instead we got silence and rampant speculation, and disingenuous shrugs from our managers when we asked what was going on.)
A while back, like rest of the peons, I got a fleece featuring the company logo. I’m sure that management was hoping that we wouldn’t notice that we’d gotten fleeced literally and figuratively, inasmuch as that while we got cheap outerwear emblazoned with company propaganda, select other employees were getting frickin’ iPods.
In any case, it often gets cold in the NOC, so I kept my fleece on hand, hanging in the break room.
Since the fleece was always there, its pocket became a good place to keep the headphones that I also like to have on hand.
For a while I’d been using the ear buds that came with my iPod (the one I paid for myself because the company has never opted to give me one), as I have some pricy noise-canceling headphones I use with it.
But in the course of a 12 and a half hour day, having ear bud crammed in can get a little painful, so recently I bought some nice earphones that clip onto the ear rather than going into it.
Yesterday when I went to grab them at the start of my shift, my fleece, which had been there a scant 12 hours earlier when I stowed my earphones at the end of my previous shift, was no longer there.
Because I tend to expect the worst of people, and because I work some of the people I work with are total assholes, or at the very least immature jerks, I naturally assumed someone had stolen it.
Still, I allowed for the possibility that this wasn’t done intentionally, particularly given how lame it was as a bit of theft. I mean, we all got the damn fleeces at one point, and we’re not talking about terribly expensive earphones.
But the fact remained that I wanted it back. Not so much for the sake of the fleece, of course, but I did want my earphones back.
So I first asked the manager on duty if someone had done some sort of “spring cleaning” on the coat rack, as it did seem to have been messed with, but she was unaware of any such activity.
I wrote a neutrally-worded e-mail asking for its return and had the manager forward it out to everyone.
Some hours later I went into the break room to take a look, and sure enough, there was my fleece on a hanger, complete with earphones.
I can’t help but wonder why it was taken in the first place – maybe someone was cold and thought it was some sort of community property – but I was glad to have it returned.
Still, I won’t be keeping my earphones in it any longer.
And so the quest for the gray fleece was pretty much my big adventure for the weekend. I know, it wasn’t exactly Jason and the Argonauts, but maybe one day, after constant retellings, the story will grow to mythic proportions.
Somehow I doubt it, but you never know.

The Sunday Fester

I haven’t been sleeping especially well lately, finding that, while I feel tired, I just can’t get comfortable at night and so I toss and turn for a couple of hours, wake up multiple times while it’s still dark out, wake up again about an hour before I would normally get up, then fall back to sleep and get up a half hour to an hour after the time I normally get up.
I am then tired all day and anticipate falling asleep easily owing to a certain amount of exhaustion, only to repeat the same cycle.
I suppose I could talk to my doctor about it…if I had one.
Actually getting a doctor is one of those things I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but have never bothered because, frankly, I haven’t seen any real reason. I almost never get sick (and when I do it’s generally just a mild cold that runs its course quickly), and despite a few minor complaints here and there (as evidenced by yesterday’s entry), I don’t really have any sort of ailments that demand medical attention.
And if suddenly get violently ill or something there’s always urgent care.
It’s certainly not like I’m opposed to seeking out medical assistance for specific problems. I mean, I’ve got a dentist, an eye doctor, and a chiropractor, but somehow it hasn’t seemed necessary to acquire a general practitioner.
And I doubt that it will any time soon, as I’m sure the sleeping thing will pass. Even if it doesn’t, I do manage to sleep on work nights, so it’s not really that big of a deal.
In any case, after waking up at around 10 this morning I did the usual dicking around before showering and shaving.
Shaving was a pain, as I’d done my usual Sunday festering yesterday, and as a result had not shaved.
Normally I shave with an electric razor, but that loses its effectiveness if I go more than one day without shaving, so today I had to do it the old-fashioned way, which is kind of a hassle (compared to the electric at least).
Once all of that was out of the way it was time to head out into the world. I was going to stop at Super Target to pick up a few Super-Target-y things, then go to Shoppers for groceries, but, forgetting the lesson I’d learned last week about why I shouldn’t, I decided to do all of my shopping there.
Oh well.
Among my purchases were some belated birthday presents for Kathleen. Now the question is whether I’ll see her and be able to give them to her this week, or if I’ll just give them to Brian on Thursday.
I haven’t seen Spider-Man 3 yet, as Scott and I are planning to catch a matinee tomorrow.
So far the reviews have been mixed, but on the other hand it apparently broke box office records over the weekend, and on the other other hand I don’t care what reviewers think anyway.
I got a letter the other day informing me that someone from the condo developer will be stopping by to inspect my unit (hehehehe) on Wednesday.
Not sure what’s up with that, as we did not achieve the required unanimous acceptance of the buy-back offer by the deadline, forcing the developer (who is in negotiations to sell off the project as an apartment complex) to go back to the drawing board.
It’s to their advantage to own all of the units if they want to sell the complex off, so I don’t’ really know what they’re going to do next.
While I don’t know what this means for my future, I do know that it means that I’m going to have to do something about the comic books piled up all over my floor.
As mentioned, yesterday I did the usual Sunday Fester, which consists of not showering, not getting properly dressed, not going anywhere, and generally sitting around doing not much of anything.
I did watch The Life of Brian, and the That Yellow Bastard segment from the Sin City special edition DVD, though, by way of doing something.
I also ordered a pizza.
So that was exciting.
Last night’s episode of The Simpsons featured Homer becoming a volunteer firefighter, which naturally made me think of Brian, who has recently moved his Becoming a Firefighter blog over to Blogger. My link to it has been updated to the new URL.
I suppose there’s enough time left in the day that I should try to do something constructive (like maybe pick up all my comic books and put them away), so I guess I’ll get to it.