Top Nightmares

A list:

1. Oscar the Grouch
2. Wizard of Oz: the wizard AND the witches
3. Ewoks (and my cousin's dog looked like an ewok. I was horrified to discover that one day.)
4. The blueberry boy from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

Christmas Dinner

It turned out to be ok to go to the shop dinner this year, luckily no one blamed ME for the terrible food because 1) I didn't chose where we went this year and 2) it turns out German immigrants eat at Olive Garden and like it. Mystery solved!

The guy I sat next to and I compared stupid immigrant questions. It's a recent life story feature I don't think I have documented, but must rectify as my life is overrun by refugees and they can be hilarious without meaning it. For example he'd gotten "where can I find a small wallet" that day, but when he suggested The Bay or Sears they became angry and told him there were no SMALL wallets there. So he sent them to Winners without having a clue just to get rid of the arguer! (define: small??)

When I got home my immigrants had company who were discussing traditions or, rather, the lack of traditions that "English" (meaning Canadian) people have. I was trying not to listen but I ended up mulling over their uproarious laughter when one of them remarked that all Canadians seem to eat for special occasions is "turkey, turkey, turkey!" They all took turns talking about the things that they eat back home, for example one of the women remarked that traditionally goose or duck is the Christmas dinner, however she'd only ever made it once, it was a lot of work and very fatty, so her family didn't like it. (traditionally those Germans who don't eat duck or goose for their Christmas Eve dinner eat potato salad and wieners, yum) Someone else suggested that for Easter they usually eat lamb, but everyone else protested vehemently that they don't enjoy lamb, poor little lamb. So then they all agreed upon a ham for Easter. Which just about covers the German traditional feasts... as far as I can think about. They don't do Thanksgiving. They have a lot of days off at Christmas but Christmas Eve is the only real day for celebrating.

So for only making a duck once in 50 some odd years, eating wurst, and refusing to eat lamb, how is that different than turkey, turkey, turkey?

On the bus

A whole pile of Junior High guys. So cool that everyone on the bus couldn't help but want to be them when we were their age.

One says: you know if a girl punches you, you can only hit back once if she hits you twice.
His friend, uncertain: no, you should not punch girls...
Too cool to be wrong: no it's ok if you punch her once for every two times.

...and this

 

I've also finished these... wrist warmers, a really fun quick project. I should get sick more often.

Things I do when I am sick

 

Sometimes I decide all the upholstery needs to be vacuumed but when I am woozy like this time I kind of go crazy laying around. Passing the time with a craft helps.

This one is waiting for a head that is a bit tinier than mine. It was made for a child

I have a sore throat

So I bought some pomegranate & Vitamin C Halls that have a faint after taste of dirt.

This, if you can believe it, is a vast improvement over the cough candies my SIL fobbed off on me last night, that faintly taste like licorice and shoe polish, if by "faintly" I mean "incredibly intense to the power of infinity."

And all just because I was getting tired of cherry. I'm sooooory cherry!! I'll never cheat on you again!

How to identify a cult

My brother and sister and I were in a car stopped at a light and he points to one of those blue air freshener dolphins hanging from someone's mirror and he says suspiciously pointing at it "I see those dolphins EVERY where in cars now. I think it's a cult."

I thought my sister and I would have to get out and sit on the curb we were laughing so hard.

A few weeks later I reported to him that I saw a car with about 10 dolphins and a plastic cherry thing, that it must have been the leader. Not so funny, he thought.

The thing about the bus is...

I really wanted to say: You are in charge of transit for a million people city, plus outlying areas. You should start acting like this matters. Run your transit on a German Time Clock and throw on a few extra buses. Or else you'll never win over more riders. We WOULD pay more money gladly for service that rocks, but right now that 59 bucks is like paying for someone to come and kick you in the shin every day for a month. It doesn't hurt that bad, it doesn't make us cry, but twinges every day.

School and if I were in charge

Sometimes going to NAIT is like going to high school. Someone got a lab extension because: no ink in printer at home. Also someone got an extension for visio crashing their computer at home so they couldn't complete the lab to hand in. Meanwhile, the instructor has already marked & handed them back today... and they are still not handed in for the special crew.

I'm not sure if the instructor is scared of this student or what, because if I was an instructor I'd be like "you FAIL at problem solving" - seriously, memory stick or email or something, bring it to school, they have printers here. Also The Future Store sells ink.

I'd be a mean instructor, I'd kick people out all the time and make fun of lousy work and people who don't know how to double click.

So what happens at the University if you have to hand in a CD and it is blank? Hahaha, lab extension at NAIT!

I <3 Nasan

warning -- incoming chatlogs

me: hey can I ask you a question about your resume, I wondered all through supper about living on your own hump.
what does that mean? is that a Chinese saying?
S: hum.....
it's from an online dictionary....
andd I just copy & paste it....
me: haha really?
i thought about it for the last hours and am trying to figure out if it relates to a camel's hump and living off one's own resources or what
S: lol
it's like
hump means back, right?
me: you can have a hump on your back, but generally no...
S: it's like, 'I'm on your back' that's means I'm supporting you
me: no
hump = bump
S: and my hump maybe means, support myself...
me: no
Steven: hump = bump ?
.....
me: like a big bump when old ladies and men don't stand up straight
like the humpback of notredame
S: but, sometime hump also means carrying something?
you got me?
i guess no lol
me: no, hahaha
http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&q=define%3A+hump&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
good try though
S: During nearly for weeks in this glorious place I have lived on my own hump.
me: NO
hahahhaa
S: tha'ts what on the dictionary!
me: that doesn't make sense!
no way
bring in your dictionary... I will cross it off, it doesn't mean that
S: I dont enjoy humping heavy furniture around all day.
lol
it's an online dictionary~
me: hahaha
HAHAHAHA
S: is that make sense?
me: nononono
it's so bad! :)
S: but you are laughing, that's means it at least means somthing :-o
me: people sometimes say hump when they mean have sex with.
and unless you say hump+back
or hump and mean camel
S: what???
have sex with???
hump?
me: sex is humping
S: oh!! but it's not the only way of have sex
me: to say sex? no there are others
S: ppl can have sex in different ways...
me: did you click on the link I sent you?
S: yes
me: ok well there you go.
S: haha~~yeah, you did really good job to correct that for me!
I don't want the employer thinks I want to have sex with them
me: i'm sure most people would spend the night like I did thinking about camels
S: yeah, boy camels have 2 humps...
me: I bet you they wouldn't think about sexx
boy camels have 2 humps??
oh I don't know if I want to hear the rest of this story!! hahahaha
S: camels have humps right? and boy camels have 2 , and girls have 1?
me: no it depends on the type of camel
hahahaha
S: really???
......
me: what do they teach you in Chinese zoos?
S: sorry about that ...x-(
me: hahhaa
the 2 hump is a dromedary?
no the 1 hump is the dromedary
I just looked it up
S: yeah, me too lol
me: hahah
i forget what the 2 hump is
S: yeah, chinese is much more simple in this case
me: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactrian_camel
S: dromedary is called '1 hump camel'
me: that's the 2 hump one
hahhaa
really? and everyone thinks it's a girl?
S: I think just me...
me: http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=hump
S: Hump is the lump on your ass....
me: YES
exactly
like the song
bubble butt
S: lol~
interesting
me: hahaha
it's funny to read
S: yeah, english is interesting
like, bush , it's bush, but it can be a name
me: yes it can be a language or a name
S: yeah, but I think the reason why Bush is looks like a monkey it's because of his name
me: hahahaha
bushes are small though, not like a tree
S: and jackson, HiJack, jack's son
me: monkeys wouldn't like bushes
S: Jackson
me: that's how the name probably came about
S: they like!! coz trees like bushes....
me: there's a lot of xxxson's
S: yeah, a lot of interesting name in english
Jason
Nason
W/eson
me: Nason?
S: nasen?
Nesion?
me: Nathan?
S: na sen?
nei sen?
me: hahaha I think you must mean Nathan
S: I forget how to spell it, it's like Jason, but a N instead of J

On Mazdas

I <3 my sunroof... um I use it all the time because it makes the car less like jail. And sometimes truckers standing next to me at lights look down into my car when it is open and that is funny. I cannot imagine owning another car without sunroof, I am not kidding.

A letter to ETS

I've never written a complaint to ETS, but I have written commendations over the years. This morning was a pretty terrible ride, so here's my first complaint ever to ETS.

What happened this morning:
Bus #4395 - NAIT special, left Millwoods Transit Station at 7:05. It arrived at NAIT not at 7:45 but at 8:05.

Some of us leave our houses at quarter to 7 in order to make it to school/work on time. It would be helpful to have bus drivers, routes and schedules that would accommodate us getting there on time.

First the bus driver drove down 23rd Avenue until he reached Calgary Trail when someone asked him where he was headed. Then he drove down Calgary Trail to 34th Ave, where he turned onto 34th Ave and pulled over twice to read his map. Apparently he had trouble locating Lakewood. When he nearly turned right instead of left someone got up and stood by him for the rest of the drive to make sure he knew where he was going. It arrived at Lakewood at 7:22 and left Lakewood 3 minutes later. No one got on. No one got on at Millgate either. One person got on at Bonnie Doon. Problems locating Downtown happened after that. Despite the helpful rider pointing out which exit to take in the Bonnie Doon traffic circle the bus driver still took the exit into Forest Heights. A complicated backing up procedure happened after that.

I have 4 points to make about the bus driver assigned to our route this morning:

* Better route training - Drivers should know where the Transit Centres are & where they are in relation to the others. Know where you're headed when you leave a transit centre, because your riders DO. If you don't, ASK.
* Better city training - the city layout is the same in the dark as in daylight, Downtown always is in the centre of the city, from Millwoods that is north. ALWAYS.
* Map reading skills - consult your assigned route, preferably not while driving. It has a map, check it before you leave.
* Problem solving skills - 20 or more minutes after you've missed a transit centre no one there is still waiting for YOUR bus, they've found alternate routes that know where they are headed. Just get the people STUCK on your bus to their destination without being MORE late.

While I'm still at it, I have some observations:

* Lakewood Transit Center is the only Transit Center without a clock. Why? It would be helpful to have a clock.
* Downtown Transit Center digital clock inside the shelter is still on daylights savings time. It is now 2 weeks past the time change. This is annoying.

I realize that transit gets me to where I'm going every day. I do appreciate that. These complaints come from a place that wants more people to rely on the great service ETS does provide 99% of the time.

260 - The History of the Internet. 3 times a week. Today's agenda: introduction to Web Design.

As if I hadn't already been bored...
Here's my chat log:

Me: hahahha, the history of the internet prof is talking about the internet.com today and he's calling them "EARLS" (that is: URLs) phahahahha
J: HAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
you should tell him that the term url is deprecated and he should be
using URI instead
pfft history indeed
Me: In class example:

This is a paragraph that tries using underlining, italics, and bolding
together with a line break.

J: ummmmmmmmmmmmmm
em is for emphasis, hth!
Me: u is deprecated -- hth! hahahhaa
Me again: {text-decoration: blink;} HTH!!!
(css itt!)
J: Oh yes! swoon!
Me: HAHAHA, oh man after I sent that we have actually just added blink to our style sheet... HAHAHAA Oh my I'm going to love this class... Snoooze! Ohno! :pencil:
J: Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahahaha watch your eyes! :pokepoke:

It's just too early for this in the morning, is what it is.

Nerds 2.0.1

260 - The History of the Internet. 3 times a week. It is enough to make me >:( most days.

You have no idea but in this class today we are watching a video on the history of the internet made by PBS in 1998. >:( It contained the following quote:

it's not a hula-hoop, the internet is not a fad

I dunno but this class sucks. It's the history of the internet OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I want to run screaming from the room. Also he announced the rest of the itinerary for that class... XHTML. Awesome. I guess I might do alright in this class if I don't fall asleep and impale myself on my pencil!

Le Soup

My mom made a lot of French Onion Soup growing up because some people apparently really like it -- I call it Tape Worm Soup.

Dilemma itt.

It's windy and cold. It feels weird to walk and have wind blowing up your nose when you're trying to breathe out of your nose. You're breathing out of your nose since you don't want gravel to hit your teeth. Dilemma itt!!

Power Attack

We had a power outage this night, luckily the smoke detectors woke me up in the middle of it :heartattack: to alert me to the fact that the power was out. I didn't want to know but I learned something: I need new batteries for my alarm clock. I also could use a fresh pair in my flashlight.

...29 - Four Funerals and a Wedding

The last half of year 29 has been one of the worst years I can remember... never has "immer wenn du denkst es geht nicht mehr, kommt von irgendwo ein lichtlein her..." been more wrong. Every time I thought it couldn't get any worse, it did.

Today was a funeral for a guy who had spent 30 years teaching in the same junior high school -- and from the comments of his students and fellow teachers really made a difference. I remember babysitting his kids, two of the funniest children I remember sitting. This is the fourth funeral in 2 months -- the first being my dad's friends funeral, one of the kindest and most dedicated men. Then both my grandmas.

Stress at work, stress in renovations, stress at school...

The highlight of 29 was my brother's wedding and early in March selling my condo and buying a house. I hope 30 turns out well. I'm actually not afraid of telling people that I'm turning 30 anymore.

Zamboni

It's weird when you get hit on by the school Zamboni driver... and it's a girl.

On the bus

Last week there was a crazy person on the bus who was talking to herself... the entire bus was not looking at her in case it should encourage a new bus friend. She was complaining about the buses always being late and never arriving on time and how the bus drivers touch her bum and how the government moved her without asking, then how "they" touched every single one of her underwear and now she's in her new place and only has one pair of shoes and they took her glasses and every time she coughs she pees her pants.

She coughed a lot.

but she's right about the buses always being late.

Boo earns

Standby UPS: Switches instantaneously to the battery when it detects a loss of power from the wall outlet.

I think that word is stupid and shouldn't be used. I don't know why I dislike it so much. I just do.

Good morning

A bundled up lady on the bus this morning (before 7 am mind you) puked out the back door, got back on the bus and sat next to me.

Again??

Two Oma's in two weeks seems like very wasteful of Oma's. And again, I have to move rooms.

Today in school I saw an Asian guy wearing toe socks... you know those creepy (and girly) socks where each toe has its own little sub-sock? And how do I know he had on toe socks?? He was wearing flip flops. That's right, flip flops.

To Poker or Not To Poke Her

We have had poker nights before but we have too many girls for that... it goes like this:

some girl: haaa!! oh boy oh boy!
someone else: got a good hand did you?
some girl: waitaminit, did you peek at my cards?!?

How to reboot

• Log off. Choose restart.


• Press the off button. Then press the on button. HINT: it's the same button.

One guy in my class had no idea how to restart/reboot his computer when the option was locked out of the start menu. How do you get into computer classes without knowing at least three ways of doing the same thing?

Reason #5678 why I'm still single

I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats better -- the ones we grew up with anyhow weren't needy... dogs it's like having a girlfriend. Ugh: Pet me, feed me, love me! STOP LICKING ME YOU FREAK!!

On the bus

An international student asked me where the street is with the naked ladies.
"Whut?"
"The street, you know, with the naked ladies."
I concentrated very hard on not laughing out loud.
"Hmm," I said "No, no I don't know. I don't think they're naked, but I assume you mean 97 Street, past the Stadium."
"97 Street? Wait, Chinatown is on 97 Street, are you telling me to go to Chinatown?"
"Whut? Hahahaha, No! North of Chinatown, around the Stadium."
*skeptical*
"Yeah, I don't really know where you'd find a street with naked ladies, you're going to have to ask one of the guys... sorry my friend!"

On sleeping, or not sleeping

Last week in class I was fascinated to read about polyphasic sleepers. There's a bunch of different schedules including the Uberman's and Everyman's Schedule on wiki.

So of course last night I slept not at all. This was in part to battling dragons all night long. Dragons being management of course...

I decided that my former place of work was equal parts made up of The Inert and The Inept. Also that I'm glad I don't work there anymore and that their problems are no longer my own. In the Inept category is the usual bunch of morons who can barely spell their name and people who can't operate PCs. The Inert are harder to define but I came up with this list:

• The New - they just haven't figured their place yet, they could be the Inept or one of the following


• Retired Brain - are they retiring or quitting? Either way it's Solitaire all day long and don't rock the boat!


• Optimists - "So happy to be here! Hugs for all! It could be worse elsewhere!" Believe they are making a difference and changing things from the inside.


• Personal Lifers - have things going on at home so complicated they need to come to work for some down time. This category includes wedding planners, people with kids, anyone who is dating, etc. "Work? Oh that place for making free personal calls all day long!"

I'm not sure which I was... probably a Personal Lifer. I have never been an Optimist; I'm more into Realism (or Pessimism if you will.)

What is it about work that makes us put up with so much crap?

Plain White T's - Hey There Delilah

The Ivory Club had a guy who covered this song, and it was awesome -- better than the original.

Feeling Sorry For Myself Because No One Else Will

I felt so sick from being tired. One night I turned off the light around 1:15 am and all I could hear was my uncle SNORING next door -- so I went upstairs to escape to the living room couch and found his girlfriend on the couch, also having escaped the noise. I bunked on the short couch until she started snoring too, after which I went to the crappy love seat at the back door. :(

I am kicked out of my house due to no bathroom,
I gave up my room at my parents for them to sleep in,
to sleep in the guest room,
only to give up the guest room for my uncle,
only to sleep on a foamy in the storage room,
only to escape the snoring to the living room,
only to escape to sleep by the back door.

Who feels sorry for me?? ME.

What'd you do on the weekend?

I cut myself with a sharp knife, a mandoline, the garbage can lid and a cardboard box.

The cardboard box cut is not even as bad as the mandoline cut on the top of my middle finger. It is very sharp. I should probably use the saftey thingy, but Danger is my middle name.

Office 2007

What'd they do to office?? This is not great. Where is the handy tool bars we know and love? Where is my new document button?? Where is the FILE menu??????????????? Luckily I know ctrl+n. Apparently MS did "research". I guess the people they asked were all MS partners and really liked the start button pfft... so they put a big button on the top - click here to do everything, but shhh, don't label the button. apparently everyone they asked is retarded.

WTF, we finally get all the admins trained to type letters ok and then they change fing word

Gimme back my GST!!!

Today on the way to catch my afternoon bus I passed a white haired fogey with a big chin. "Whoa," I thought, "that totally looked like Brian Mulroney."

Yup and dammit!! I missed my chance to kick him!! His quote for the day "I'm the former dictator of Canada" - har har. Thanks a lot Brian.

Add him to the list of infamous people I've seen:

Kirsty Alley - in a park, bitching at her assistant, on location in a made-for-TV movie before she made her so-called comeback
Ralph Klein - in a park in Calgary, the same park Kirsty was in
Joe Clark - in Kensington in Calgary with his wife just walking down the street
Brian Mulroney - on Jasper Ave, wandering with only one other guy

FUNEE!

How sad is it that I've discussed this exact equation before and the dating pool of eligibles??

In my expert opinion however, it is a load of crock. Both theories are a load.

HP vs Toshiba

So the former laptop with it's goofy keyboard is no more. One night while programming I had to reboot the computer to get my quotation marks back and that was it... enough anger!!

Now I have a HP. It is 11.6 lbs, 17,4 in. Size does matter. However the Toshiba was easier to setup. It was not worth, however, the anger dealing with the keyboard.

Supporting the French and losing out on business. For shame. I was almost as mad about this bad business idea as I was about the soup.

Programming

I didn't really give most people any heads up I was quitting and going back to school... I don't really have a reason except that it was kind of up in the air and it's not really anyone's business. Here is also why:

Other People: Back to school?? What are you taking?
Me: Programming.
Other People: Really? What kind of programming?
Me: Oh, microwaves, VCRs, clocks, that sort of thing.
Other People: REally??
Me: No of course not you moron. Compjuters.

On Banks

Banks like to hire Ed grads. Why I do not know. This is why banks are totally retarded.

hey french!

apparently my new laptop keyboard was accidentally changed to the french setting hence no hats and only backticks.

HAHHAHAHAHHA I really hate the board. They've got a non-standard keyboard with an extra line of keys in between L and enter. AKA A FRENCH BOARD.

hyjhijooipkihuuihuihuiokioji\./\`


Hellow how are you ??/////+++???/////\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
it`s //```
it`s ««sdfadf

this is going back to the store

:dorks:

Naruto is magna. It has become anime because the graphic novels were so popular. There are four or five villages, and I now know this because someone was preparing himself for the day in the student lounge by tying a purple ninja bandana with a metal plate to his head.

Dorks live here. This is what I now know...

Survey School

Today at lunch I was dumbfounded when I glanced out of the window on a cloudly dreary day, onto a beautiful green lawn and noticed 20 surveying students, apparently learning how to survey. Who knew!

This truck has...

This truck has two front ends.

This pizza has...

On an Elementary School playground. Of all places.

The Rules

I'm thinking of a new rule that when people buy $300 mp3 players they are required to shell out for a decent pair of headphones too... a pair that channels their music directly into their brain, and not out into the rest of the bus. It's the most annoying cacophony of east indian (dingadingalinga) and thrasher metal (screaming) and techno (duffduffduff) on the bus every morning. Yesterday I swore some big dude was listening to the soundtrack to Dirty Dancing.

This is not ok with me.

Registration Post-it

My NAIT program sent me registration information in the mail on Friday that said I need to show up Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursdsay or else. The letter was dated Wednesday, and postmarked Thursday, and arrived Friday. Today someone from the program office calls me during a funeral to inform me that I have to get down to the registrars office today or else they revoke my registration. I go and guess what? I stand in line. Boo!

For a half an hour or forty minutes I stand listening to silly teens complain to their dads about how hard college is going to be, to little punks talking to their friends about how lame class was last year and which girl was hot. I stand in line some more only to be confronted by a registrar office lady who has no clue. At all. She had no idea you could pay online. No idea you could register online. No idea at all. Eventually she figures something out and she sends me down the hall with a POST-IT that says "Registered KS Aug 27-07" to the student ID card picutre people who send me away, since apparently the registration system takes a day to update. I should come back tomorrow, or if possible next week. By way of goodbye the student ID card picture lady says "make sure not to lose that post-it."

OK that's so awesome: I have a post-it as an official piece of registration.

Remember when?

Remember when that German man in the airport picked his nose for five minutes and at the end of it hid some treasures behind his ear?

Ha!

out of the blue my dad says "who is this Ofra woman?"
me: who?
dad: ofra!
me: never heard of her.
dad: ofra? famous lady?
me: ofra?
dad: yes ofra. Or opera. or something.
me: Oprah? you mean OPRAH? hahahahahahaaaaaaaaaaa!!!

German Ordnung

Germans have an interesting outlook on life -- Ordnung! is the highest of German virtues. Forests are orderly. Branches may not lie about on the ground, and all the trees are lined up in rows. You come out of the main terminal in Frankfurt and your soul sighs in relief to see sidewalk bricks aligned perfectly as far as your eye can see. Not only are they straight at the airport but in the rest of the city too. And not only that -- they have the exact same pattern on every street, in the entire country. You're asked to keep your kids in line and behave in an orderly fashion every where you go.

But maybe in a country of 86 million crammed into half the size of Alberta being orderly is the only way the people preserve sanity?

I drove up to my house yesterday evening and I had no idea where I was! All my bushes and shrubbery look European... neat, rounded off and very short! A German visitor of my renters was busy all day yesterday it seems. His soul must have just been crying looking at my yard.

Frankenstein, Vampire, Cookie monster?

From my sister's phone I get this text:

So R wants to know if u had realized that you have now gone on dates with both frankenstein and a vampire. hes keeping an eye out for the cookie monster for u just in case

Ha ha, me love cookie!

Don't men count??

This just in:

I notice on your website there is "information" for: special groups, professionals, parents, teachers, women, employers, youth, and aboriginal people. Quoting your own demographic survey statistics that men accounted for over 60% of your clients, where is the "information" just for men? I find this glaring omission sexist and undemocratic. Don't men count?

You think this is a man emailing us?? Nope! Sexist and undemocratic? It's a woman. From her work email. So I looked her up on the online staff directory -- Faculty of Medicine.

Baffling.

No Mail

There are people who never update their address list... but insist on snail mailing everything. Certain people realize that you've moved and get your new street address but continue to post everything with your new street address to your old city. Or a combination of your last three postal codes, cities and street addresses. Then they email you to confirm your address.

Maybe it's time to move into the electronic age and send your letter via email... since you're already on the computer box thing, you might save some time and 2 or 3 x 52 cents.

Have you seen the Bachelor show with women in their 40s competing against women in their 20s? They put a 30 year old tennis pro in this situation. He has had a lot of fun with the smart, successful, pretty 40 year olds even though some of them are old enough to be his mother, which is creepy weird. He's had uncomfortable silences with the 20 year olds though he admired their bodies and found it hard to keep his eyes focused on their faces. It's a Monday night study in awkward social interaction!

Kind of like the date I went on... half an hour before we were to meet he called me up and asked if he could bring his friend along. It turned out to be one of those kinds of dates -- a waste of time, but I laughed so hard and came away thinking it wasn't a complete waste of an evening. It was a set up of my sister's home inspector and me, and his friend Tim. Or Mike. I'm not sure what his name was but he was just out of jail. One of the first things I found out about the guy I was supposed to be on a date with is that he likes wolves and wants one as a pet. Or a wolf-dog, whichever really. And he likes to read. Mostly Anne Rice books, like 20 times over. And his favourite movie is The Secret. He wishes he were a vampire and that he could do magic. At some point he said "sometimes when I laugh hard I spit on myself". Quite frankly I have not laughed so hard on a date in a long time... it was really good that Tim or Mike was along to fill in the conversation and surprisingly I had a really good time.

And this is why I go out on dates. The best stories ever. I could never make this stuff up.

Blue not a Berry

My grandma used to freeze blocks of blueberries and raspberries and use them as ice cubes in punch... once I had a really juicy fat one stuck at the bottom of my glass, but when I tried biting it, it was kind of woody tasting. I was brought up that one never ever takes food out of one's mouth if it tastes funny, you just swallow it with a lot of water, but alas, no juice and no water in sight -- so I spat it out on my plate. It turned out to be a blue caterpillar, one of the fuzzy kinds, rolled up. Then I ate some soap. I have never ever stuck a caterpillar in my mouth again.

Pain in the HR

Our HR department hasn't got a clue. I like how for an admin position they say things like: Grade 12 diploma, supplemented by related courses and extensive experience with Windows 2000, Microsoft Office 2000, and the Internet are required when in reality they let anyone in. "Have you computer experience? No? But you know what a computer is and heard of the internet? No? But you *have* used a typewriter or pencil before? Well, no matter, it's not like rocket science, ha ha! Now how about the telephone, have you heard of this -- you press some numbers and hold a device to your head and hear voices...? No? Well, I'm sure you're a fast learner, no worries!"

The Long Light

About half of my commute is spent waiting at this light.

Who needs friends when you have enemies?

The Importance of Being Hated
In this golden age of enmity, friends are for suckers. What you need are a pair of well-chosen foes.
by Chuck Klosterman

Twitch!!

So one of my new roomies has a twitching problem. Check out this video to find out what kind of twitching problem...

Thursday afternoon geek club

I love my geek club. Love it. I like the people in it. A lot. They are fu-masters and I secretly want to be just like them.

See the thing is this

Despite the fact that you tripped down the stairs at Telus Plaza because you were wearing an ugly hat, the thing is that I'm on my cell phone. You do not have to be annoyed at me for being on the phone when you are trying to explain to me that you tripped. I get it. Your hat is ugly, you tripped and crashed into me but I'm on the phone, so go away!

so NOT a morning person

It really picks my butt in the mornings when people are deliberately trying to pull information out of you when you give one word answers. I'm sure they're thinking "sheesh, why is she so difficult?" The answer is: I'm sleeping standing up and you're freakin' annoying.

Chipper person: Hiya! How's your day starting out?!
Me: fine.
Chipper person: So, what'd you do last night!?
Me: nothing.
Chipper person: Ha ha ha, I'm sure you didn't do nothing all night long!
Me: ok fine. I did laundry.
Chipper person: Hardehar! It sure does pile up, doesn't it!? Sooo, got plans for tonight?!
Me: nope.
Chipper person thinks: sheesh, why is she so difficult?
Chipper person says: ha ha, yeah, sometimes it feels like we just need time to do nothing, doesn't it?!
Me: yup.
Me thinks: for crying out loud I hope this convo is over...
Chipper person: so are your Grandma's still at your parents?
Me thinks: ...dammit!
Me: yup.
Me thinks: why is people's last conversation resort ALWAYS about my grannies?
Chipper person: oooh, they must be quite old already. That's so hard.
etc...

And that is why I want to stick people with forks.

Loogie

Zipped across the street to grab a sandwich at lunch and zipped back to work... while I was coming past the Starbucks our CEO was just spitting the biggiest loogie on the sidewalk. He looked up and recognzied me as staff... I hope he also recognized the drop dead look on my face.

I'd expect more from the CEO of a government commission, but hey, I guess I'd be wrong -- he confirmed he's really nothing more than a farmer.

More emails

As more and more people are turning to their friend google for help and advice I'm noticing more and more emails to our webmaster account. It had been infrequently and usually people my Mother's age who I know aren't as discerning about privacy matters, but lately (I'm inferring from their emails) a few younger people have contacted us with no regard for keeping personal information private.

The best part is that these people send in sentences that are entire paragraphs of disjointed thoughts. I very much enjoy reading people's crazy emails.

Boob check

Ever wear a shirt you're kind of falling out of and while you're checking to see if something is hanging out someone compliments you on the shirt? It's like being caught in the act of checking oneself out. They're probably thinking "what a weird chick, you know, those things are attached, they're not going anywhere..."

And then this morning someone else almost ran me down in the hallway and while I was processing her outfit thinking "is she wearing a sack??" she said to me "oh, I love your shirt!"

"... uh thanks! I like your..." jumpsuit? dress? sack? "ensemble too!"

Ha! Take that, a nice French word to cover up the obvious faltering!

Iced Cap

I had no idea, but a colleague of mine can use an Iced Cap from Tim Horton's for a whole afternoon of fun.

---------------------------------------------------------------
From: Maria
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:24 PM
To: T
Subject:


if she doesn't put that straw down right away I will scream.

---------------------------------------------------------------
From: T
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:24 PM
To: Maria
Subject: RE:


Is she squeaking it against the hole in the lid? That's annoying.

---------------------------------------------------------------
From: Maria
Sent: Thursday, June 14, 2007 2:25 PM
To: T
Subject: RE:


yes and slurping, and poking around so makes a noise against the bottom of her cup. all afternoon since LUNCH.

Passive Agressive

I must admit, I do this:

http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/

Crazy

I think it's a sign of my colleague going crazy -- she has been talking to herself in her cube like someone is with her at all times since she got here. She refers to herself as "the new girl" but really she's been here since October. And since October she's been talking. She'll discuss things with herself, swear at the scanner, tell whoever she just hung up the phone with to "f@#$!!yerself" and today she told someone loudly "Don't ask! Just don't even ask!". But she was alone. It sounded like she was writhing around on the floor -- she does that occasionally, but there was no one in the pod with her and only me in the entire pod farm, so who was she talking to?

Sometimes all of us in the pod farm dream about someone yelling out "OK, one, two three -- lob!!" and we'll all lob our coffee mugs over into her cube at the same time hoping someone gets lucky and beans her. There are about 10 of us who'd like this. A lot.

-----Original Message-----
From: Maria
To: IS - All Staff
Subject: Kitchen news

Hi all,

Please note: this week's kitchen slaves will not be scraping the food and cheese off, or washing the dishes currently located in or around the sink area. If you left your used dish unattended in the kitchen this afternoon, shame on you. Kitchen slaves tidy up, but do not wash the dishes.

You'll be happy to know that this week's kitchen slaves will be sorting out the fridge on Friday afternoon. Please make sure your food is not past the expiry date, or it will be tossed.

---------------------------------------------------------------
From: K
To: Maria
Subject: RE: Kitchen news

wow... harsh :)

<3 K

-----Original Message-----
From: Maria
To: K
Subject: RE: Kitchen news

I like to think it was assertive. Hmm, that's 2 harshes to 5 funnies, so far, and one "can you get people to stop eating my lunch?"

---------------------------------------------------------------
From: K
To: Maria
Subject: RE: Kitchen news

excellent tracking...

Guilt works

I went to the jewelry party. I liked some stuff. I bought some things.

For shame...

Swipe 3 times

An email today --

6th Floor Facilities: To book the space please email the Property Manager with all the pertinent information. Then to obtain the pass card please come and see me. I have an Access Card for both the "Classroom" and one for the "BoardRoom". Each card will get you into the main door of the Meeting Room Area itself as well as the particular room that you have booked. One swipe will get you in and the door(s) will lock behind you. If you want the doors to stay open for others coming through, you must swipe three times! In turn, when you leave for any reason (washroom break, lunch etc) and you want it locked simply swipe three times again and it will stay locked.

Every day I find facilities management extremely hilarious. This is complicated, and their emails outlining procedures become more and more convoluted every time something new comes up.

I think a good instruction would have been:

You put your right hand in, you put your left hand in, you swipe three (3) times, then you turn your self around! That's what it's all about!

My buddy Sean came up with an even more clever set of instructions:

To paraphrase an old AM classic:

Swipe three times on the doorway if you want me,
Oh, twice on the pipe, if the answer is no…
Oh my sweet thing, (swipe) (swipe) (swipe) means you’ll meet me in the boardroom,
Twice on the pipe (knock) (knock) means you ain’t gonna show.

Secretaries

Our nitwit Executive VP sent out his congratulations on company-wide email about his secretary moving on to a new position as a secretary in another department. This woman is one of the most professional and beautiful women I know -- thoroughly competent and absolutely gracious. At the very least the woman who has held his hand and done everything (short of picking up his dry cleaning) for him these past six years deserves to be recognized as an Administrative Professional.

Colour printing

So the deal is that if you're a manager, you get to colour print. If you are not, you have to apply for special permission to colour print.

This means that a bunch of crap like PowerPoint presentations (oooo!) and pictures of kids (snore) and pie charts (are you kidding?) get printed out in full blazing colour because managers around here are generally asshats.

I don't even print in black and white, so I don't really care, but it chokes me that someone upstairs decided peons wouldn't be discerning enough to decide what is worth printing off in colour but a manager would.

WHY?

Why in this day and age of Youtube, why oh why do people still send actual files to your email and clog up the work emails??

I count 3

Much like the tupperware party of yesteryore, free trade jewels and hand bags are the sales party of the 2000s for the socially concious and upwardly mobile DINKs. In the 1990s it was candle parties, followed by expensive cheffery and kitchen gagetry and I even was forced to attend lingerie parties. I never believed it would happen but I've now long since hit the age where some of my friends are turning into the scam artists I know my parents friends were. I used to promise myself after being dragged to Tupperware, Watkins, and Amway parties as a kid that I would NEVER participate in the horror of guilting your friends into coming over while they were determined not to spend money on a charlatan's products but eventually caved so that the friend/host could spend X amount of "free" money on whatever useless junk the party happened to be centred around. Parties of any kind especially where you make your friends pay for stuff they don't need is a really terrible idea. Anyhow, this just comes up because in the last two days I've gotten 3 invites to the same woman's parties. Who admitted she likes the idea of making 11% commission for "doing, basically, nothing."

Slow down ladies!! I only can be guilted into going to so many parties...

Airport Hangar

I didn't think it was possible but then I am very often surprised at work. The Airport Hangar was back today.

This time around they asked me to take off the arrow and put a new arrow pointing to the area between building 19 and 20 and gave me a sentence to replace Hangar #6. Now, this is probably my fault, but when I get stuff to post I assume it's finished, complete, spell checked, and the final-final-final version of something. It rarely is, and I don't think people sense the frustration they create -- it's not just fixing something, it's posting the same thing twice. It's as much work to post it in the first place as it is to replace it with a fix.

When I sent back to them I got a note back, "Just a minor change "airport" spelling and since you are going into the document if you could just move the arrow a little bit closer to Aiport Road that would be great."

I checked back, since I always cut & paste and sure enough the original email said "77 Airpot Road" AIRPOT?? What in the world is an Airpot?

Never one to let someone's mistakes go un-pointed out I wrote back "Ha ha, I just copied 'Airpot' from your email."

Nice going, Moran.

You Post, I Thank Yee

For something I posted for 2 people I got one "Thaaaanks!!!!!!" and one "Thanks from me also as well."

Free Soup Day

In the subway Maple Leaf Foods was giving away "Free Fresh Soup! Fresh Free Soup!" So I took some home. I like to think of it this way: if it's for free, it's for me! Turns out: It was not for me.

Pouring it out into a bowl at home, if you can call tumbling out in a jelly-like lump "pouring", it seemed really thick. Really thick. Like gravy. Lumpy jelly-like clear gravy. Lumps of meat, lumps of veggies in it. Should be good, I thought, since I love gravy.

Well, it didn't taste like meat. It didn't taste like veggies. It didn't taste like gravy. It tasted like yuck. Checked the label -- it's low sodium soup, which means instead of adding less salt, they add more chemicals that don't taste like salt. Everything just tasted like chemicals, coated in goo, thick-gravy-like goo.

I fear they might go out of business with this soup making venture.

Environmentalist

I've converted my Dad. On the bus ride home he called me to find out where and what make & model number my reel push mower is and brought one home. My cousin is working on her boyfriend, my brother likes it, my uncle grudingly decided it wasn't bad, my neighbour borrowed mine when hers quit, my parents neighbours hauled it over the fence to give it a try, and Diana's going to make her husband come over to try it out... pretty soon everyone I know is going to have a push mower.

I'm going to balance out the good I've brought into this world by getting everyone to convert to a push mower by buying a big, bad, gas-guzzling snowblower this year.

Elmer Fudd

On the radio this morning they were taking calls from people who'd gone camping on the weekend and got stuck in snow. (Around Calgary and Grande Prairie apparently they got snow this weekend) So this woman calls in and she sounded like Elmer Fudd...

She: so my fwiends said we should go camping around Gwande Pwaiwie and it would be gweat and I dinnt think that sounded gweat but they were like "let's just go! it'll be fun" so we went and woke up in the middle of the night it sounded like thwack thwack thwack on the tents and it was hail!
3 Morning Hosts in chorus: HAIL??
She: yes it was hailing! in Gwande Pwaiwie! it wasn't gweat at all! It was howwible!!

Crazy neighbour

Early on a long weekend Monday morning is not the best time to be mowing your lawn. Your neighbours will look out their windows and think things about you. I, for example, thought "what in the world is she doing??" This is because my neighbour was mowing the wrong lawn early on a long weekend Monday morning. When I talked to her later in the day she mentioned that it looked like Robin had gone away for the weekend and she wanted the exercise.

Best part: his lawn didn't particularly look like it needed to be mowed.

A whole new world

Gardening. It's harder than it looks. I'm ready to strangle dandelions, I speak abusingly to quack grass and despise ugly thistles.

Today in Canadian Tire a woman was knelt down looking at small gardening tools as I pushed past her to get a bottle of Killex. I cannot seem to get rid of quack grass and dandelions in the lawn manually, it grows faster than I can dig it up. As I was examining the various brands of toxic chemicals that promise to leave behind a lush lawn while annihilating weeds, her husband encouraged her to get up so they could get going and move to the next aisle.

"I would get up," she replied "...if I could. But I can't." He laughed and gave her a hand up and when she caught my eye she sheepishly giggled.

"Too much gardening?" I asked.
"Yep."
Full of empathy I agreed, "me too."

Just Dandy

This long weekend, as with all long weekends in Alberta, is forecast for rain, rain, more rain, and possibly snow.

I have a dandelion problem, so I don't really care. At least I won't have to spend the entire weekend digging them up, it's just too wet outside!

facebook

Two months ago facebook was fun and cool. Now it's not. Between the elementary school bully repeatedly asking me for coffee or a bbq and my friend from junior high poking me incessantly I get no peace, no peace at all!! It's no fun anymore.

There are people I want to be friends with, and then there are people who add me because they know of me... like the boss who made my first real job hell on earth, the kid who knows my BFF in Aylmer Ontairo but not me, the bully I bit on the hand in elementary when he and his rowdies tried to pull apart my friend by the arms, the girl who didn't have any friends in high school, all these people I left behind for a reason! No I do NOT want to be your friend!!!

I HATE IT!

With every new website launched there are some pains. Our new site launch has gone fairly smoothly with the exception of IT. Every day I hate them more. Officially we're routed through the Help Desk for "help", but they are no help at all...

Finger pointing, name calling, yelling, tattling, cursing. Multiple times daily.

Things are still not resolved.

Love thy neighbours

I've decided to document neighbourhood stories as someone keeps providing me with ample amusement.

On Sunday evening I got home about 5 pm and decided to weed the front lawn. Shortly thereafter the flyer guy dropped off flyers and things in everyone's mailbox. At 7 the neighbour sent her oldest child (age 15) over with her friend (who was visiting) with a plastic bag. They knocked on the door and started putting the flyers into the bag. When the guy across the street eventually opened the door he was disheveled, in sweats and looked like he'd been greatly enjoying a Sunday afternoon nap... they attempted to explain that they'd been sent by the kid's mother who figured he'd gone out of town and SHE who was standing in her kitchen yelled out the window across the street at him: "WE'RE JUST WORRIED ABOUT YOU ROBIN!" The kids handed him the plastic bag and ran home.

Wow. Just wow.

I guess I'd better take in my mail within minutes of it being delivered...

Deep Purple Pain

I went down to calgary with a guy on Sunday to check out a doors and windows show room... I wanted to throw myself from the vehicle. I have never heard of Deep Purple before. This was invitation enough to listen to a few of around 100 CDs that he has of the band which was formed in 1972, a full five years before I was born. (Oddly enough I was loudly complaining about that I don't know Deep Purple in Tim Horton's this morning and the guy in front of me was as offended as Roland was.) He likes to collect this group in particular because of their wide range of musical ability. From classical inspired rock to screaming yelling rock. Rock, rock, rock. I listened to more than enough classical rock for a lifetime. (I have little patience for screaming music.) In particular he was excited to tell me about the history of a song he asked me to pay special attention to the lyrics... which I couldn't understand in the least. He was envious of english people's ability to understand the "text" of the song without having to translate it. That is, if we would be able to hear the words over the screaming and squealing!

Mower

It's weird having a house -- I'm outside doing yard stuff for hours on end. It's kind of fun. I bought a reel lawn mower -- i.e. no power. It's the most genius idea I've thought of ... last year someone at work sent me a link to one that was really expensive and ships from the States and I made fun of her. She's into organics and composting etc. Except she will never get around to it because she's too lazy. The more I thought about it's not only a good idea because running a gas mower for an hour is like driving 40 cars for an hour, or that North Americans spill as much gas as the Exxon Valdez every year trying to fill their mowers... it also is a good idea for allergies. I'd have to hide in my room and close the windows when my dad would mow the lawn. I figured it was because it was blowing grass and grass dust and grass seed through a bag that is never ever cleaned ever. And I was right! Mowing the lawn with a push mower is fun, good exercise and doesn't set off my allergies. My dad was dead set against it, but then he tried it last night while we were waiting for a backup to finish and he had fun. He went home and told everybody about it and offered to buy my brother one!

Have your neighbours cake and eat it too

In a bizarre turn of events, I was invited for birthday cake at the neighbours. The kid is 15 and I'm sure had no idea that I was invited. I was also invited to part take of their swimming pool once they have it set up. And also was quizzed about my boyfriends. Many boys have been coming and going out of my house, some might be my brother or cousins, but clearly not all.

It's sort of inevitable that people look out their windows. It's even forgivable that they notice what's going on, and laudable that they'd keep an eye on your place if they know you're not home. They count on me to do the same for them. It's ok. I get it. And since both our driveways are 1 foot apart and our front doors face each other it's even easier to watch the neighbours. It is weird however to have neighbours that comment on it and quiz you about your comings and goings. I have a "mothering" neighbour, even more motherly than my condo neighbour.

On Saturday morning, for example, she was out bright and early at the fence separating our driveways to let me know that her son had been looking out the kitchen window when I had gotten into my male friends car the night before and alerted the whole family that I had a boyfriend. Yay for Maria! When we returned with take-out only half an hour later she was delighted when my "boyfriend" drove up on the driveway. In an act of goofiness he'd driven all the way up the long drive and parked in front of the garage, so the entire family was alerted again that I was back with my "boyfriend" and he was parking in the garage. Of course this was just a fishing expedition to find out if it was really my boyfriend or not.

Then she invited me to have birthday cake with their family that evening, it was the firstborn's birthday. I thanked her for the invite but as I was going out I would not be home. That was ok with her; they'd save it for Sunday then, or any day I could make it. Weird. So Sunday night in between hosting my own friends and going out I took an hour out to meet the neighbours. I'd noticed their yard is in want of some TLC and their fence and gate could use some sprucing up -- there is a tiny section at the back of the yard that is gated off with what looks like farm fence; I wondered if they had a goat. They have a broken down tree house, 13 hockey sticks sitting in a pail near the back door, 3 garbage bins, an old gas oven in their garage, too much patio furniture, an old trailer, and hardly any grass. Their house wasn't much different. Furniture that even my grandparents had reupholstered and house plants and stacks of sports equipment... it was an eclectic mix of stuff. All of it old, most of it junk. In fact, they not only have 3 dogs that ALL look the same but are different sized and coloured (but one is a poodle and the others are some other sorts of mutts) they also have 2 cats and some hamsters and gerbils and lizards.

Anyway, I'm sure the 15 year old and her friends were mortified that the neighbour lady was invited over for her birthday -- but what could I do? It's like going over Niagra Falls with a bucket. I brought the kid something small and signed a little card over which the mother exclaimed delightedly and the daughter dismissed. No matter, I enjoyed their cake and listened to the never ending flood of info about all the neighbours and ended up learning a great deal about them too. Nice people, messy, but really nice.

The Bachelor

Basically it's about a guy macking on 20 girls at the same time and girls attempting to morph into anything they think he'll like. So weird.

Enough penpals already!

How come all these pretty russian girls are finding my email address online? I couldn't possibly talk to them all!

Potfiller

I had no idea but this weird contraption is a pot filler. But why?

Unbelievable internets

This afternoon the someone who gleeked on me messed up again. Surprise! Yes, this is the ongoing SOB saga.

Hilarity ensued this morning when for the fourth time, I sent our communication expert the same link, for the fourth time. A super-easy link that is linked on the homepage of myintranet.com. It just kind of made me laugh when she copied in the CEO and her supervisor (the Sr. Manager) and numerous other individuals with the wrong link that I'd given her three times before. I know three times because I complained loudly about how easy it is to find. Her supervisor sent me a note thanking me for my patience with her technically challenged staff, but I laughingly pointed out that it was the fourth time. When the Sr. Mgr "helped" her staff fix the link I was still not surprised when the memo came out from the CEO with the wrong link. Unbelievable!

Laptop bag

I don't really like laptops, the keyboards are weird, the little touch pad gets in the way and it skips out all over the place, but I like this bag. I probably need it too.

I want it. I need it.

I want this bag. I neeeeed it.

Gleeked on

I would like to take a minute to explain how I got gleeked on today and why you should try to avoid all communications experts. (Just in case "Gleeking on wiki)

So this particular one, who is possibly the most technologically challenged person I know, comes springing into my cube this morning, chewing. She eats all the time, but never sitting down. I think that's the way she stays skinny -- she can eat anything, but she can only eat while moving -- hence the disgusting episode where she stood in the office across the hall sucking strawberries off the green stems producing revolting loud sloppy sucking noises. Also much like the time she ate dry granola out of a bowl with a spoon while she stood in the same doorway, flinging granola every which way.

This morning she was chewing/smacking furiously on whatever was left in her mouth, all the while talking to me about some papers she was furiously waving about. Her excited explanation was something related to the CEO and this Very Important Initiative. She's created a clever acronym for this initiative -- hang on to your hat, it is -- SOB. She even wanted to get an email for questions you could ask the CEO that started with SOB@work.com. (Ha ha ha!!!) I answered one of her technological questions when she took a break to breathe... at that millisecond a stream of saliva spurted out of her mouth, across the corner of my desk and on my keyboard tray. Before I even realized she quickly hopped all the way into my cube and wiped at me, my desk and the keyboard tray with her hands... only saying, "oh sorry about that" before continuing.

I wanted to puke.

My supervisor almost died laughing when I came into her office to complain.

Kitchen Martial Law

The fridge in the office has recently been a bone of contention for some person in our office who decided to "order" people not to refrigerate lunches that didn't need refrigeration, for example, oh, anything that wasn't dairy. Oh Yes. Granted the fridge is always disgusting and always overfilled but we do not need our people dropping dead from spoiled lunches.

Emergency! Coming through!

I nearly got run over by a fire truck today as it was coming down the left lane of a one-way, three-lane 50 degree incline hill... at the light at the top of the hill the fire truck driver waved people coming towards him to turn off and continued careening, sirens blaring, down the hill.

...but like I said it's a one-way street and they were going the wrong way.

So I called a friend who happend to be driving that way to warn him... when he got to that point three minutes later they were watering trees with their fire hoses.

Guess the trees were a little dry and could have started a fire...

Torture by way of shower

I wonder why as adults we go to showers, or subject each other to showers. They are horrible. Baby showers, bridal showers, jack-n-jill showers... horrid, horrid, horrid.

Yes, I'm an adult. I can go to an awkward event where I don't know anyone, mix & mingle, bring a present as well as a fruit punch or appetizer and behave like a lady. But I don't know why I should feel obligated and guilty. And I don't know why my friends think I should be subjected to them.

Hanger? Hangar?

Many, many people at work saw it before I got involved. I didn't read the email very closely, but I did produce a great map of the airport with the words "Hangar #6" and an arrow pointing to building #6 on short notice by stealing it off the airports website and doing some PhotoShop magic.

Turns out most of our staff would hang up aircraft instead of parking them in a hangar. There was a request sent back to me that said "sorry to be so picky, but on the map could you please fix hangar to hanger."

Sure enough the memo they wanted to attach and the email both said "hanger." And they were angry about it when I looked it up for them in the dictionary.

Monitoring

I just rescued someone -- he claimed he'd changed his monitor setting to 1024 x 768 as we had instructed him to, but the entire screen would shift sideways. How odd!

When I went to check (because stuff like this usually has to be seen in person in order for me to understand as this never happens to 95% of the users I help) he had switched his view, but to 768 x 1024. Turns out that to his amazement (and mine), it is not the same thing.

Red Plague

Red Lobster has been a place I have avoided. I ate there this weekend, for the first and only time ever, and boy was it yuck.

I don't enjoy franchised food that is delivered to a restaurant for warming up. I don't think making a big corporation richer while their staff make minimum wage is the right thing to do. If I want to go out for food I would also prefer something tasty. I would also rather support an immigrant who will bend over backwards to be helpful and make my eating experience tasty.

But on Saturday to use up a gift certificate and to thank my sister for packing up all my stuff I relented. She wanted Red Lobster rather than Olive Garden. (another place I avoid like the plague)

First of all we had to wait for an hour -- this is baffling. It is not that good.
Second of all, the parking lot was filled with SK plates. Odd.
Thirdly the service was surly. Probably because the restaurant had been packed since sun-up.
Fourthly, I felt sick afterwards.

NEVER AGAIN!!! Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me!

Dating stories

I have this terrible personal theory of going out with pretty much any guy who asks. Within reason of course. At best I am out on a date drinking free coffee and will have a fabulous story to report later on, and at worst I will have a fabulous story to report later on. This theory has not brought me much success in dating.

As you might guess therefore most of the guys whom I've dated have made me feel like I am tiny, thin, smart, and wildly successful. If you imagine a 300 lb, 6 foot 5 inch, hairy man who lives at home with his momma, plays with trains and works at Tim Horton's, you wouldn't be far off.

not as smart as I look

I didn't own up to something today... something that would have made me not as smart as I look. It involved a beautiful picture of a gorge and me instantly saying "gorgeous!" without any intent for a pun. I beat a couple of smart guys to the pun and laughed like I intended it. It would have taken me a few more seconds to come up with something that clever except by sheer luck.

It has been suggested that my subconcious is smart enough to make that leap on its own... but I doubt it.

Smarty Pants

There is this guy who lives near my parents' who used to get on the bus looking like a hayseed. Sticking up hair looking like it was desperately slicked down, the worst case of buck teeth you've ever seen, white tube socks sticking into black runners and always pants that are too short. I feel a little sorry for him, for being just so geeky. I've never laugh at him just in case someone secretly thinks I'm a dork.

Because I do worry that my pants are too short and that someone is laughing at me behind my back. Like today, walking home from work. The back of one of my pant legs kept getting inside my shoe. Which would probably indicate that my pants were, in fact, too short. But you know what? My pants being too short means that my cuffs won't get muddy in this spring weather! So there.

Oh dear...

My friend has a 3-week old baby that scratched the side of his head and gave me the finger, much like his mother does when she doesn't like what I say.

Spam stinks

I wonder, if a person's email address were just a bunch of random and unusual letters like z x and y strung together, if as much spam would find your mailbox?

Invasion of the tall people

Ever think it's weird when you go somewhere and there are only tall people around? And you feel like a kid? Even if you're not? It might be a short person thing that only happens to me...

Frenches Toe

I have to speak my mind about Kraft orange plastic cheese slices again. On French Toast, orange plastic cheese slices rock. My mom made us French Toast this morning and it was amazing... having Friday mornings off is the best thing ever. I like my French Toast best with orange plastic cheese slices "melted" on top and drowned in maple syrup.

My grandmother that lives with my mom pronounces it "Frenches Toe" with a heavy German accent, which is just awesome!

Numbers

I'm not so good with numbers. People who know me, know that. What I am good at is keyboarding, well over 100 wpm without errors. Here's what I don't like: how come they made up the computer keyboard with a number pad that is exactly opposite from a telephone number pad?

Even though the telephone keypad has probably been around longer than the computer keyboard I would like to start a petition for phones to switch to the keyboard pattern. It just makes sense to standardize. And then I would be a phoning whiz, even if I never remember anyone's number.

Meat and cheese

Our church get-togethers were never potlucks; the old ladies would plan it all, purchase everything and recruit the youth group to butter bread. Once a year we'd have a conference and there'd be 200 loaves of bread to butter -- about 3.86 loaves per person which would be turned into open faced sandwiches. As Germans you could have a cheese sandwich or a meat sandwich. I always considered it was against our religion to eat meat and cheese together on the same sandwich. Later on in life (i.e. two years ago) a Russian friend pointed out to me the oddity of the situation... she figured it was because we're cheap. Your sandwich is already covered with one or the other; you don't need two toppings. That would be extravagant.

I still don't eat meat and cheese together.

Pizza

Pizza. "Sausage cake" is what my one grandmother used to call it. When she'd make it she decided dollops of sour cream would make it better. Right on top of the salami and cheese.

My other grandmother couldn't figure out why anyone would buy pizza sauce when ketchup was so much cheaper. Also when she'd run out of Kraft cheese slices (which don't melt by the way, and have this odd way of coating your teeth in yellow plastic-feeling coat of crap) she'd use dollops of cheese whiz.

Speaking of cheese whiz, I had NO idea it was WHIZ until about oh, 2003. I mentioned cheese wheeze (yes, it rhymes) at work once and someone thought I made a joke. It wasn't meant to be funny, I'd never read the bottle myself, and that's what my granny called it.

I heart Bananas

I really really really like bananas.
This was an interesting way to sell them.

New House pics

There are some new house pics up at Flickr -- check out the notes on the first picture! It's such a cool feature.

Bumper cars

Driving home from school one night this week I saw a car with a wooden bumper. It was a Sunfire. The wood was rounded off, strapped on with cords and covered the entire back of the car.

Sold 1 condo

I sold my condo on Saturday night. About 10 groups of people called/showed the place... got three offers. Where except in Alberta can things move that fast?

laugh it up now!

Some people have been laughing about my House. It's a real house... with lovely floral covers on the stove and seashell toilet seat covers. The seashell toilet seat covers match the lovely seashell shaped sinks.

Laugh now, it'll be as nice as the rest of the renovated house soon!!

Web email

Today's email gem:

No Smoking Coloring Pages for Gr 1 -4. May I suggest that someone look into this as it is a great learning tool for young children!

NEW!

I bought a house!! A sweet four bedroom, double garage house! Went to go look, liked it, wrote an offer and 9 hours later it is all MINE!!! Muahaaahahaha!!

Pain in the Google

We ran a Google feature on our intranet homepage Nov 29 to encourage people to stop typing in www.google.ca or google.com or goggle.ocm into our search engine. It gave instructions for adding it to "Favourites" or as a link beside the address bar.

Before the feature
In November google (or similar) was searched a total of 144 times

The month after the feature
In December it was a total of 143 (yay! the feature was a success!)

Another month after the feature
In January it was 238. That's an increase of 71.22%. Everyone who works here took the blue pill and the MIB came and flashed their light.

not just full moon

Just looking for a HR form and it somewhat frustrating since they aren't in alphabetical order, even in their sub groups. Possibly this could be looked at. If possible. Please and thank you.

This woman picks my butt about once a week. Some weeks she misses out, so she doubles up the next week. She is always this friendly. Possibly. If Possible. Please. Because you web people are idiots.

Response:

Hi there! The forms are grouped into sub-sub groups (without any headings) within their sub groups -- for example, all the medical and dental forms are listed one after the other, all the volunteer forms are listed together, the commencement forms are listed in order to be completed, etc.

It is kind of a long list, but unfortunately this is the best solution for the page at present without making the page any longer.

Thanks for your email,
Maria

I'll save you what she wrote back. It wasn't very complimentary.

Templates are no fun

I got a super funny email from one of our writers today about a posting that had me in stitches... Then he showed up at my door to apologize. Apparently his supervisor was forwarded the email he sent me.

Not only is it the one-year anniversary of my employment, it is also the day we unveil on the intranet our brand-spanking-new templates. Few days can match the excitement of this one. In small African villages, tribesmen are jumping around for joy and banging on drums while their womanfolk shout at the sky. Meanwhile, a local mother just called her newborn baby Template to mark the occasion.

His supervisor told him to "get a life." A sense of humour is not appreciated here at work -- they attempt to remove it at the first sign you have one.

Naked Spammer

Subject line: I removed my coat, jumper, fleece and one of the two t-shirts I had been wearing.

Just a note from one of our spammers to let us know they are now naked.

Seriously: someone please stop the full moon

wacky email questions

In all seriousness, how do you reply to this message?

"I have some adult gravol suppositories with the code #(L) 0J107. I would appreciate it if you could let me know if these are still good or are they outdated."

Full moons bring on the wackiest emails to my account.

Search stats

Someone searched for "Plenty of Fish" on our intranet -- it's a FREE dating site. "Quantity over Quality" is their motto. (j/k!)

Or how about Gogle.ocm?
Or the Alberta Sherif, Sherrif, AB Sheriff?
Or Kwit? (Quit???)
Or Helping Kids Kick Butts? (I hope they mean cigarette butts)
Or Retirement Life Challenge?

Pirates

Our meetings are like any other meetings. Except we don't have coffee, food, or civilities. What's it like working with grown-ups? Here, we shout at each other all the time. Meetings with more than five people are impossible because you can't hear anything. No one ever listens to anyone else around here.

And swearing. People around my work swear like pirates. This is the only place I've ever been where admins drop the f-bomb numerous times while reporting to their supervisors and you refer to people with colourful adjectives.

Improve my software experience

Yesterday in the IT survey they asked what were the top 3 things that would improve my software experience here at work. My top recommendation was removing Comic Sans MS. Number two would be for HR to actually enforce the "must be computer literate" line in all job postings. The other thing to make me happy would be to let my supervisor save as much email as we want so my supervisor would stop crying about her inbox being full. I'm not sure how her inbox could fill up to 60MB every single week despite clearing out her sent and deleted items.

Still in hysterics

Yesterday someone was sent to apologize to my supervisor and I for her rude behaviour towards us during the previous week. Her excuse was "I'm sorry but my period was coming so I was especially crabby."

TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!!!

Hysterics

This hysterical woman who cannot seem to log into the government sites is becoming a pain in the a$$. The last few days I've been posting her stuff for her since she "sees a big blank screen" but hysterically told us she didn't have time to sort it out (Maria, she is important! don't you understand!?) so I had to do it for her. Yesterday I found out she didn't even try to log in, so the big blank she was seeing was in her imagination. Lying to my face about computer trouble... nice!

Today, since I was away from my desk my supervisor went over to her desk to see what she was doing wrong and got YELLED at for standing over her shoulder! She was so ticked off... and today's problem was that despite the fact that the system sent her a reminder to login and choose a new password she doesn't seem to think it applied to her... so her password expired today.

meeting request

Here's a meeting request I got yesterday that had me worried about the state of work's management:

"I hope most of you can make this. I could not book the room to concede with our meeting so I hope its Ok to go the next week. "

Huh?

While technically everything is spelled correctly, no bonus points were awarded for clarity or appropriate word usage. Points for originality though.

Knitting

I met a big burly guy in the knitting store on the weekend who taught himself to knit because he wanted an orange sweater. That is cool.

Pain in the scanner

So guess what I'm doing to earn my keep today? I'm scanning in old pictures of a manager for their retirement party and making the photos look good. (People in the 70s and 80s wore really ugly clothes, also had ugly hair cuts) I tell ya, I really feel like I'm "Making a Difference" (company tag line) today!

My scanner at work is from 1992. Half the time it works and half the time it doesn't.

I must also painfully note -- pictures that have been in a shoebox since 1977 may LOOK like they have no dust and scratches and thumbprints but even if you cannot see them with your naked eye, they are there.

1 photo = Staring at 12 men and 3 women for an hour and a half at 400% zoom. 2 system reboots, removed 1 large scratch right across the middle of the photo, removed what looks like fur, feathers and hair on black wide-leg-pant suits paired with hilarious skinny ties and for the women ugly shirt dresses with shoulder pads and wide belts, applied 2 fliters: despeckle & dust, removed 1 gigantic thumbprint.

Just wondering

Sometimes when I hate my job I wonder what it would be like to drive a bus or deliver mail for a living. I was thinking about that this morning, because I like to walk and sometimes I'd like a job that's as mindless as shovelling dirt. Being a postie would be ok 95% of the year.

Trains

In Germany, train stations are like obscure airports, and they are named variations on a theme for example "Bhf-Süd" "Bhf-Süd" and "Bhf-Süd". Where the first station is South, the next one is More South, and the next Even Further South. Even if you happen to manage to get off at the correct train station, finding the correct track in time to get on your next train may be nearly impossible as you have to find the correct underground tunnel that will lead you to the right track.

German trains (unless you're on a high speed track) end up being The Milk Run with heat or without heat.

They do have my sister's favourite game though: "Guess how long it's been since that person has showered."

Hours of fun!

Authority

A manager went on mat leave and the person who's taking over is an older lady who WAS quiet up until this point. With her as acting manager the noise in my office area has increased by 1000%. She shouts from her office instead of picking up the phone or emailing. Even standing right next to one of her peons she talks REALLY loudly at her employees. It's so weird.

She was a reasonable person until she was given some authority. Now she can only talk in a loud voice.

A year of buying a pack of cigarettes per day is like buying a brand new, 50-inch widescreen flat-panel TV! - corporate website

Does that mean that a 50-inch TV causes lung cancer and will turn my teeth yellow, 'cuz if it does, I don't think I want one....

Missing you

I decided to start posting again. I have three readers (the best people in my world!) that like to read what I write and I've let them down by not providing any new postings. It all was too much when I got two harrassing emails from the same person... maybe she's gone now and forgotten about this sweet fun site.