I get to completely overhaul/redesign the corporate web site. Does this mean they will let me call myself webmaster now, and not merely the "maintainer of the web page"?
I have inherited Godfrey's sore throat. Whenever my throat hurts, I just want to eat lots and lots of soft serve ice cream. I mean, I'd go to the local all-you-can-eat food trough and put my head under the soft serve dispenser, a la Barney and the beer tap on The Simpsons, but I have a feeling that wouldn't be socially acceptable.
PAST: What was your sense of "national identity" like when you were in grade school?
I always thought of myself as an American. Until, that is, I moved to Florida. At the bus stop on my first day of school, I was asked if I was a Yankee or a Rebel. "Huh?" I asked. "Where you from?" they asked, Deliverance-style. I told them and was promptly labeled a Yankee, which amounted to a year of almost Amish-like shunning. The ironic thing is, there were a couple of Confederate soldiers in my mother's family, which makes me more "Rebel" than the little sixth grade taunters, who probably only moved to the South a year before I did.
PRESENT: How patriotic do you feel nowadays?
I love my country and hate seeing what's happening to it - i.e., that the very ideals of freedom (such as freedom of speech, freedom to question the direction the leaders of this nation are taking it) are now considered "unpatriotic".
FUTURE: You and a group of like-minded folk decide to secede and form your own nation-state. What do you call it?
We have - House Sinister!
Find other people's responses on GreyDuck's PPF zone.
Don't read this if you're not interested in my sinus woes, okay?
So last night I was in massive amounts of pain, as there was all sorts of sinus pressure happening on my face. This in turn put pressure on my jaws, and since I have TMJ, the pain was damn awful. I do love getting a paycheck, so I am back at work today, strung out on cold meds, la la loo dee doo.
In other news, there have been some sick and twisted searches pulling up this journal. Which makes me think that perhaps I am the freak. Though I don't recall writing about sick and twisted stuff. la la loo dee doo. Somebody pass the Ricola.
My high school bud Mary is fighting the good fight against spam! Check it out here! Every so often we e-mail each other, today she told me she recently got interviewed by Dan Rather. How cool is that? And she says I'm famous because she could Google my blog.
And if you're wondering about the title of this entry - she knows! Mary is the only other person I know of who has large portions of 80's movies memorized.
I don't suppose it makes any difference to you, but there's a weird Chinese guy up in Mike's room in the cubicle behind me.
ADDENDUM: Should I be concerned that there's a radar antenna mounted on a tripod in a cubicle over in Engineering? At least it's not pointed directly at Marketing.
I don't care how big they make my feet look!
The Weird Chinese Guy brought his girlfriend into the office today. I guess that's what she is; he was introduced to me as an intern (perhaps Asok?) and interns don't usually have secretaries.
And in the TMI Deptartment - this morning I almost threw up on one of the cats.
No, I don't design brochures in Word. I use a real layout program, like Pagemaker or Photoshop.
No, I don't design our website and our e-mail blasts in Word. I use Dreamweaver. (Yes, I know you can craft masterpieces using plain ol' HTML in Notepad, Godfrey, but that's kinda time-consuming to the average human being.)
But, to be accomodating to the desires of a few, I have to cut and paste things in and out of Word. Blech.
Sarra uses the word "poo" a lot. Good for her. That word makes me laugh out loud. I guess I am an eternal sixth grader at heart. When I got to the part where enchanted fireworks spell out the word "poo" in the latest Harry Potter book, I laughed and laughed.
Poo, hee hee hee!
I was quite excited when I visited the mailbox today - my silk had arrived! But I was underwhelmed when I opened the package. See, the description said that it was 54" wide silk taffeta. But the stuff they sent me was only 42" wide, and it was semi-sheer. Isn't it kind of a universally-understood thing that taffeta is a certain weight? (Okay, understood by the fabric cognoscenti.) And the description said suitable for dresses and blouses, I didn't think that meant "suitable for dresses and blouses, the likes of which can be found at Fredrick's of Hollywood." I can't make an Italian Ren out of see-through fabric! And of course the company's customer service line shut down by the time I got on the phone.
"Yes, hello, dreadfully sorry to bother you, but the silk you sent me is rather disappointing. Now be a good chap and send me some suitable silk before I come over there and shove French fries up your nose."
Julius Caesar's blog. It needs more Latin. Still, it's clever. Okay, I'm a geek, we all knew that.
Will be without the Internet, without a computer, the entire weekend. All to make Nerdvana easier on the gamesters, I'm participating in a lend-lease act of sorts. Nerdvana is a semi-regular occurance where those inclined toward computer games all bring their computers to Carl's house, they network them and then spend the weekend shooting each other - virtually, of course. Shoot-'em-up games make me dizzy, so I'll pass.
"So long, boys, have fun storming the castle!"
Normally I either don't mind and sometimes even enjoy cooking and and going grocery shopping, but the summertime blahs or something have got me down. I just can't find the energy to drag my happy ass to either grocery store or kitchen. The Lazy Factor has also seeped into my journaling here. For instance, I haven't written about going out last Sunday with a gaggle of girlfriends to get pedicures and lunch. I have very pretty purple toenails now. Nor have I informed you that Lisa delegated to me a few cooking assignments for her shed-razing party on July 4, thus allowing me another step in my quest to prove that I can indeed cook and not poison people in the process. I made ham, pasta salad, potato salad, and blueberry pie. ("There is no honor without pie" - Shakespeare.) I even got to smash part of the shed with a sledge hammer - it's harder than it looks, Lunchbox and Carl had to give me pointers. But it was quite satisfying.
Perhaps I'm channelling what energy I do have into my decluttering of the house quest. I should have taken "before" pictures. On second thought, I'm glad there's no evidence.
Sometimes a hearty hand gesture is all that's needed.
PAST: Marbles, dolls, board games or dirt?
I played with Barbies with my little friends. I liked to make up soap opera-like plots. One in particular involved Ken secretly dating Skipper - which is more than a little disturbing, now that I think about it. I also rode my bike a lot and played in the vacant lot next to my house.
PRESENT: Dancing, driving, reading or gabbing?
Mostly reading and gabbing.
FUTURE: Ranting, raving, pissing or moaning?
Mostly ranting. What would 'bitching' be classified as?
PAST: Nobody's going to get angry at you about it now. So go ahead and tell us how old you were the first time you got a taste of an alcoholic beverage. You didn't really wait until it was legal, did you?
The first time was 9th or 10th grade; my best friend and I split one of those premixed strawberry daquiris at her house. Didn't imbibe again untill the night of our high school graduation, when a bunch of friends and I went to the beach and shared a bottle of champagne.
PRESENT: I don't have anything against drinking, I just don't want to be a drinker. What about you? Do you abstain, go wild or just have a sip of wine from time to time?
I have a beer from time to time; usually no more than two per time. I try not to drink only to improve my mood, but sometimes it happens.
FUTURE: Continuing the "what would you call it" thread, create a mixed drink and give it a name. Fanciful ingredients are encouraged, of course!
A "Screaming Ginevra" would involve a generous amount of Godiva White Chocolate liqueur, a splash of Godiva chocolate liqueur, and maybe some vodka for an added kick that wouldn't destroy the chocolatey goodness.
As always, brought to you via The GreyDuck.
With the recent regime change at The Office, work has been "interesting". By interesting, I mean the way the Chinese consider the phrase "May you live in interesting times" to be a curse. As the clever people in IT monitor our Internet comings and goings, discretion is the better part of valor here, but not nearly as interesting for this blog. Sorry. Godfrey has been urging me to write it all down so I can write a novel about the place one day. I will say that a cow-orker has christened the place "Flourescent Hell". Good one. Unfortunately.
I got to put sizing or Kilz or whatever-you-call-that-white-stuff on the new shed over at Casa Lunchbox this weekend, AND I got to go to the county dump! There's just something about hurling big chunks of wood down into a dumpster, especially when you can shatter a glass truck window in the process. After some strange encounters on the road - like being asked by some woman glued to her cell phone as she cut me off at the off-ramp, "Is there a dent in the side of my van?" - Lunchbox, Gamera and I did sushi (well, Lunchbox and I indulged in the raw fishy treats, while Gamera had something equally tasty but not so fishy). I had a near-spiritual sensation in my brain induced by wasabi. And then we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean. Johnny Depp (will he ever go by John, do you suppose?) does a great Keith Richards impersonation! Oh, and a visit to a vintage clothing shop in Ybor City convinced me that I nead a tuxedo coat, the kind with tails. Just because.
Engineers are not too good at writing marketing copy. Which is where I come in, I get to rehash a 9 page document this week. My Soup-ervisor is much better at this sort of thing, but she's on vacation. So it's me and my red pen vs. run-on sentences aplenty.
Engineers are also not known for following up on e-mails. Like when I asked one of them to check some complicated links to annoying documents on the corporate site, he read the e-mail - he just didn't check the stuff I asked him to.
The other day I dipped into the office of an out-of-town sales manager to take a personal phone call. I couldn't help but notice that he had written the last name of Uncle Chuckie (the now semi-retired avuncular engineer) about 40 times on his desk calendar. Reminded me of the commercials on ESPN with the crazed goalie shouting "Brind'Amour! Brind'Amour!"
ARHGH! There is no emoticon to express how much I absolutely despise Microslop Word. And with the regime change, the mandate is that all materials will stay in the dreaded program as much as possible. So here I am, working on this stupid-ass program, with these stupid frames and boxes and a total inability to do decent text wrap...AND I have to do that "track changes" thing, which is incredibly annoying. It's crazy, I tell you!
I apologize for being such a pathetic blogger recently. I promise, when my brain returns, I'll not have to resort to uploading slightly amusing pictures here.
| You are 39% geek | You are a geek liaison, which means you go both ways. You can hang out with normal people or you can hang out with geeks which means you often have geeks as friends and/or have a job where you have to mediate between geeks and normal people. This is an important role and one of which you should be proud. In fact, you can make a good deal of money as a translator.
Normal: Tell our geek we need him to work this weekend. |
Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com
Don't get me wrong. I love being employed, and am still grateful that Fate conspired to get me rehired here after Black Thursday, with the bonus that I got to acquire a few mad html skilz.
But there is a price. At least once a week, I get an e-mail or a phone call from someone whe "can't" access one of the technical documents on our web site. EVERY SINGLE PAGE with these documents says that you have to have Adobe Acrobat 5 or higher, accompanied by a handy-dandy link to Adobe.com. And every single time, the person calling needs to update their Acrobat Reader. Grrrrrr!
Also, our various sales reps, (well, a couple in particular) are technology-impaired. This is scary, considering the stuff they are selling is technology-intense. Whenever they have a duh moment, they call me, because my predecessor was Nice and didn't mind helping them out. I am Not Nice; not only that, we're pretty understaffed, so I don't have extra time to hold hands if I wanted to. So hopefully I can be forgiven if I wasn't too patient when I explained to the guy, TWICE, that if he wanted to edit some Power Point presentations we had sent him, he had to not only copy them off the cd and onto his computer, he also had to remove the little check next to "Read Only" in Properties. Grrrrrr!
In other work-related news, I am tired of the phrases "know-how", "state-of-the-art", and "value-added". Also, "We Have What It Takes" is a lame headline.
We should write because writing brings clarity and passion to the act of living. Writing is sensual, experiental, grounding. We should write because writing is good for the soul. We should write because writing yields to us a body of work, a felt path through the world we live in. Anton Chekhov advised actors, "If you want to work on your acting, work on yourself." This same advice applies to working on our writing. Our writing life, our life "as a writer," cannot be seperated from our life as a whole. Start where you are. It's a luxury to be in the mood to write. It's a blessing but it's not a necessity.
Julia Cameron, The Writer's Life - Insights from 'The Right to Write'.
I really need to get motivated and list some things on eBay. I've got too much fabric and a couple of costumes that need new homes. Still lazy from the heat, I barely have enough energy to cook dinner and run a load of laundry after work. Speaking of after work, I caught the end of Dr. Phil yesterday; I think part of the fascination (other than the hypnotic shiny chrome dome of his) is that he's a shrink, just like dad. I used to think my dad's work life had to be just like Bob Newhart,(the old Bob Newhart Show from the 70s, not the one where he's an innkeeper) since Bob was a shrink too. I think part of me is hoping that Dr. Phil will say something so earth-shatteringly good that it will improve my life 100fold. So far, he seems to talk about himself a lot. I hate it when shrinks do that to their patients. I'll bet.
The A/C in my car is dead. This is pretty much unbearable in Florida. I have a truck-driver's tan, my left arm is pretty bronze. It's distressing to lose my unhealthy white glow. I was quoted $500 to fix said A/C. Needless to say, I'll be without its chilly goodness for quite some time.
Meanwhile, over at "Am I Period Or Not?", She Hate Me has discovered the pictures I posted there and has declared me a shame to my kingdom. Wow, get a life! First of all, I'm flattered, because she spent the time to track down my pictures; second of all, her vitriol indicates that she feels threatened by me. Ex-cellent. If she's slamming me, it means that my stuff looks pretty good.
I was told via e-mail today that I "should consider re-working my resume, as it could use some fine tuning". The person said that he found it "a little difficult to understand [my] skills in a snapshot." I'm sorry, are bullet points too lengthy and involved? 'Cause that's what I have, bullet points. Bullet points and action words. How much more "snapshot" can you get than bullet points? My engineers love the bullet point. If they can understand a bullet point, why can't a recruiter person?
I know I'm being too sensitive. I'm sure my resume can use some retooling. It's intimidating though. A big part of it is the fact that I make my living writing and editing (and graphic designing, too, but you're not allowed to put pictures on your resume). So my resume has to be absolutely perfect. Not just spelling and grammar-wise. It has to dazzle. Sparkle. My wit and capability with the English language have to leap out at the reader. That's a lot of pressure to perform. And even if I get an initial interview, then I have to take a spelling/grammar/writing test. That's right, interviews AND tests. I had to write a press release when I interviewed for my current gig. It's understandable that employers want to make sure you're competent. It just makes the process that much more unnerving.
So now I find out that my curriculum vitae is difficult to understand, and I'm out there representing myself as an English major. Super.
Okay, two memes in a row...time for bed.
Courtesy of GreyDuck:
PAST:Sometimes it's amazing the creatures we found fascinating as children that we're either indifferent to now or even find actively disgusting and creepy. In my case, I am astounded when I think about those lazy summer days trapping garden spiders in jars. (Yeah, it's making my flesh crawl just thinking about it.) Do you have a similar experience, or am I on my own here?
I was always fascinated by lightning bugs. They are so cool! I'm still enamored of things that glow in the dark. They don't gross me out now, though. I just don't see them, since they don't live in the South.
PRESENT:This week's dull and prosaic question is, what creatures great and small do you care for in or around your home?
Cats. I'm not at liberty to say how many, in case my landlord is out there!
FUTURE: "If I could talk to the animals, walk with the animals..." Well, what would you say to them? That is, of course, if you thought for a minute that they were even remotely interested.
One of my cats always has a sad look on her face. I would ask her if she really is sad all the time. I would ask aquarium fish if they get bored.
Today I encountered a pop-up window that refused all efforts to close it. It turned your mouse into a key! A right-click didn't offer the "close" option, unless you clicked on the header. I'll take the Opera browser any day; though, unfortunately, I still have to keep Internet Exploder around for sites like Victoria's Secret.
It's funny how food = comfort. I am really stressing out right now, and all I want to do is go to stuff my face. There's only so much you can do in a cubicle with Dreamweaver in an eight hour day.
As a youth, I used to wonder why Mum was so tired sometimes after work. Now I have a complete understanding!
I miss being a kid. I miss not having to worry about getting stuck in afternoon traffic, paying bills, taxes, car repair, office politics, getting scratched by my cat less than half an inch away from my eye in the middle of the night...it's all bad, Jerry!
My last contact lens ripped right as I took it out of the package a few weeks ago. So I went into one of those glasses-in-about-an-hour-or-three places and got a nice pair of glasses that weren't so much like Coke bottle bottoms as my previous pair was. You know all those "2 pair of glasses for $100" ads? Well, the second you want something like lightweight lenses, the prices just start skyrocketing. Kind of like that record club that sells you 12 records for a penny - and then jacks up the prices.
So today I went to my regular contact lens guy for my exam. His wife sells insulin for a living, so he's always keen to talk blood glucose with me. When I mentioned I just missed getting my eye scratched the other night - well, let's just say I shouldn't have mentioned it. eww eww eww eww eww! Eye doctors have lots of horror stories. You'd think he'd have noticed me squirming around and saying "EWWW!" a lot and changed the subject to hemoglobin A1c levels.
Okay, you'd think I'd have learned my lesson. But no, later on I had to tell him about my opthamologist trying to get me to get that laser eye thing done. eww eww eww eww eww! He started talking about how they used to do the surgery, and more horror stories ensued. Note to self: do not mention anything having to do with eyes to my optometrist. Ever.
I've been told by New Age-type people that having too much stuff "blocks the flow of the greater good". It also leads to sewing room clutter. With that in mind, I have once again turned to eBay to find good homes for my fabric and such. Also, making a couple of dollars wouldn't suck. Check it out!
ADDENDUM: Apparently I can't decide how to spell the "lis" in Fleur de Lys. What can I say, sometimes I even mangle English.
Got to go to The Bamboo Club tonight. It's a trendy "Asian-Inspired Cuisine" restaurant. Our waitress reminded me of our friend Ange, if she were of Asian extraction. ("It's new Ange Asian Barbie!") Ange = Angie, BTW. I really dig the Maui Volcano Beef on a Broccoli Island. And not just because it's served with a hollowed-out flaming carrot filled with Bacardi 151. (Asian Ange advised me not to drink it, but I had already decided not to.) Maybe it's the Big Gulp of Kirin beer talking, but I feel compelled to tell you all that I saw two women fondling each other at the bar. And a woman with really big boobs at the table across from ours.
