Junior High Bullies

This week I saw one of my junior high bullies (yes, I admit it IS surprising to find out that I was not actually part of the cool kids group in junior high...) in a restaurant.

It made me extremely happy to see that she had a very badly behaved child that would run away from her through the whole restaurant.

It's all about the little victories.

Honey Buzzards

Yesterday we were watching a terrible documentary on the Honey Buzzards in Japan. Honey Buzzards (if you didn't already know or if you havn't already watched this terrible Japanese documentary) have giant bird feet that dig in the ground to get at yellow jacket nests to pull up the honeycombs and eat the larvae. (Fascinating, I know.)

Anyhoo...The birds themselves were not terrible, but the obviously not North American man doing the same type of voice-over they use for the show Extreme Elimination (including inappropriate voice inflections) was so terrible I almost turned it off. Almost. Then my cat Peanut, who was lazily nodding off in her castle, noticed the buzzards. Before we could do anything she was precariously perched on the 3 inches of space in front of the tv, had her swatting paw up and her nose exactly 1 cm from the screen following the movements of the buzzards and the bees.

It was so entertaining we watched this terrible documentary twice in a row. I can never delete this show from our PVR.

Spelling problems

There are a lot of Internet spelling problems (I know I know, I have my own problems) but I just came across one I've never seen before on a software knowledgebase:

our clients accationaly have problems with...

Engrish

Stamping = engraving into steel using a horrible contraption that makes a lot of bzzt*bzzt*bzzt noises.

Stamping department = lowest on the totem pole, you get promoted to janitor from the stamping department.


Hahahaha... our stamping dept just stamped a whole order for one of our customers with the sentence "Making in Canada"

dude: we're still making them, they're not made yet.

Eating Millet

I've had millet twice this week, cooked in the rice cooker. (1 part millet to 3 parts water) It was so tasty and fluffy, a new favourite which might even replace the couscous staple in my house. I added a tiny pat of butter, some Hy's Seasoning Salt (also a can't-live-without staple) and Lighthouse dried salad herbs directly into my rice cooker.

From wikipedia:

People with coeliac disease can replace certain gluten-containing cereals in their diets with millet.

Millets are also used as bird and animal feed.

Millet, along with birdseed, is commonly used as fillings for juggling beanbags.

So there you go. :birdbrain:

Why IT is fun again

This is the title of an article in ITWorldCanada that arrived last week, in which they expound on why IT professionals are excited about going to work every morning. Their first points is:

The Users aren't clueless

At that point I chucked the magazine into the trash. But a few times since then I've caught myself thinking about it. Really? You'd think they'd interview someone like me who was called off-hours to troubleshoot why a manager couldn't log onto our network or the internet:

"So where are you in your house right now? You have wireless, right?" I asked.
"I'm at my son's soccer practice right now."
"Wait, wait. You're outside? You're standing in a field right now?"
"Yes."
"And your first born is playing soccer?"
"Yup."
"Good. Pay attention to the game. And cheer hard!"
"What?"
"I don't know how to tell you this: You're in a field. You don't have a mobile internet stick. Your home laptop will not get a signal. Have fun, you can connect work when you go home."

Today the same article arrived in my inbox. Yay ITWorldCanada for recycling!

Perhaps the reason why IT is fun for me is because, in fact, the users are totally clueless. It's not usually funny in the moment when they're righteously indignant about how many mouse clicks it takes for them to do their job, or when they can't figure out where the high-pitched whining is coming from for themselves, or making other ridiculous statements, but looking back on it they are hilarious.

Swine Warning

Let's just say I warn you right now not to click to zoom in on this image. Don't do it! You will quite possibly throw up... and I wouldn't want to do that to you like I did to Connie when I brought it to her and stuck it right up into her face and said, "can you believe so-and-so is this filthy??"

Waving like crazy!!

Anyone else get on Google Wave yet?? I'm waving like crazy, but the only people on it so far are a bunch of knitters. What dorks we are! Tee hee! And we're having so much fun.

If you get on it you'd better add me to your contacts.

So sweet

A guy at work told me he just bought a brand new computer that had a terabyte hard drive. A terabyte! He was so stoked: "Woo! I didn't even know they made drives that big!!" :fist pump:

I wanted to hug him. Some days I wish I didn't know that either.

How can it be.

Someone brings me an email printed out with the message trail from 2 previous messages. The new email is at the top (with the message header including time and date) and the reply (with the message header including time and date) and the original email (with the original message header including time and date).

I just want to pause to point out that there is time and date on each message in this thread. Repeat for emphasis: time and date.

Today's complaint is that the bottom most message says it arrived on Friday, but it JUST CAME.

HOW CAN IT BE.

Aha! You see? QED: there is something not quite right with the system.


HEADDESK>HEADDESK>HEADDESK>HEADDESK

PS and her colleague M texting me from the United way kick off downtown

---

PS&M: Mike Sobel is at the United way opening, one can only hope he won't be involved for the entire 2 hours.

• Me: Oh! you are so lucky to be within rotten fruit throwing distance! DO IT! Our childhood saturday cartoon mornings demand it!

• Me: Also you're lucky it's not Bob Layton and his wooden ventriloquist puppet. ASK ME HOW I KNOW.

PS&M: I almost feel as though being pelted by rotten fruit wouldn't hurt his career at this point he's already made the descent from tv host > meteorologist > radio host on his own.

PS&M: We also feel that a wooden puppet would be a more captivating host than Mike Sobel. OH NOES HES LOOKING THIS WAY!!!1!

• Me: He sees your age and knows you pity him!

PS&M: If the president of our company wasn't standing 10 feet away we would totally be getting our pix with him.

• Me: DO IT! The prez will be so impressed by your enthusiastic spirit!

Teh Funniest!

Picking crab apples off my lawn (and picking them off the tree before they sully my perfectly manicured lawn because I'm German!) I noticed my neighbour had a queen-sized bed in his pick up truck. Coming or going?! Ugh, having another teen move in would quadruple the noise their 2 rowdy children, 4 yappy dogs and 7 wind-chimes produce at every hour of the day and night. The kids are too young to be moving out. (le SIGH) Hopefully, I hoped, it was just a replacement bed... and not their 17 year-olds' boyfriend moving in.

Eventually he came out with a measuring tape and started grumbling about how he was gonna fit the dang bed in the dang house in the dang boys' room. I asked about the bed. His niece had to move home because she couldn't afford the rent after her boyfriend dumped her, because she felt she was entitled to a new car, a cellphone, some cable tv, new clothes and going out, but couldn't buy food and pay rent. The bed wouldn't fit into her room at her parents, so there you go.

Talking to the neighbours is like getting sucked into a vortex of verbiage. Not sure how we got talking about home decorating or realtors next but we did and I mentioned I enjoyed going to see other people's houses to see what weird things they'd done, like for example a condo I viewed where the closet doors had been taken off and the bed jammed into the closet. It was the single weirdest thing I've ever seen. I couldn't imagine waking up with my head in a closet/cave. I can't believe people have a closet as a headboard. WEIRD. And by weird I mean wrong!

He slowly remarked "oh, well that's how the boy sleeps now, we put his bed into the closet. That's why this bed might not fit, I have to either take the trim off or enlarge the closet."

"Well. This isn't awkward at all." I thought.

Accents

In our line of work "Canadians" are the minority -- and I guess that is true of all of Canada, schools, workplaces, etc, mostly are made up of people from away. Some with accents you barely notice, some with accents you can only understand with difficulty.

Our receptionists at work cannot understand accents, which I find amusing. Women who grew up in Canada with immigrant parents who speak terribly broken English. So I can't decide if it's practice and training through ongoing exposure or an innate disposition for picking up languages. We went to school at a time where at least half the kids spoke a different language at home -- my cousin who teaches Grade 1 currently says it's up to 80-90% of her kids that never speak English at home.

All this to say that I was told in a hushed whisper that a guy "Korin? CORR... something or other" was here to see me. Karl, from Calgary, via Liverpool over 20 years ago, speaks English. Or something like it anyway.

It changed my life

About 3 years ago I got an electric blanket from my mom (hi Mom!) which was only the best present I've ever received. I know people say stuff like "it completely changed my life" and everyone rolls their eyes, but it has completely changed the way I sleep and, therefore, my life. Going to bed has become the favourite part of my day: crawling into an already pre-heated bed. Warm feet are especially important for falling asleep.

Anyway I just wanted you to know that I put it back on my bed last night and wondered this morning why I'd waited so long. First morning with snow too.

But the blanket is amazing!

Confession

Hello, I'm a PC-user (Hi PC!) and it's been 3 months since my last system-restore.

Back in July I had to give back my precious laptop for an out-of-warranty part replacement. A very generous offer by HP for putting together a laptop with incompatible parts and lousy written drivers, they offered to take my desktop and turn it back into a laptop. Thinking I'd take it down to bare-metal install I scoured the internets for a free backup image software and eventually found a trial *ahem* version which I used to take a backup image. No big deal if it didn't work, but I'd had such pains loading SQL server on it and all my software was configured the exact way I like it and accessing all the right folders. I figured it'd be easy to apply the image after the hardware was replaced. After all, I'm in IT! How hard could it be?

Ha. HA. Ha! You funny!

Yes the image was created on July 7 this year, and last night I FINALLY figured out how to get it to restore. Three Entire Months. Dammit, this software is just not created for IT people!

Ok ok ok, honestly: if my choices in my free time are sitting in front of a computer futzing with backup software or knitting, I'll choose knitting any and every single day, so it wasn't very high on my priority list. But about once a week or so I'd think "gee, I'll try this and see if it works today." Nope nope nope. The problem was that I was trying to overwrite my C: drive which was IN USE at the time, with me trying. to. overwrite. it. Duh. The help file was awful. The internet had no one being useful. I had the stoopid!

Believe me, you don't want to catch the stoopid!!

The boring details: create a recovery disk to boot only to the point where it could access the backup file, which happened to be on an external usb drive. How to create this recovery disk was the tricky business that took the longest. CD/DVD creation software sucks eggs.

Welp, now it's been 3 months of using IE (vomit) and having a plain blue background and not having any of my remembered passwords or favourite programs. Microsoft's IE is truly evil, and the evillest of all is IE8 and Bing and Microsoft Live.

The moral of this story: you should give up on computers since they're just a fad anyway, start knitting mittens and avoid catching the stoopid!

Sharing

So today at work we have a new engineer starting. Very friendly and bubbly and fun. She's from Chile originally and has a very thick accent still but has been at my company for a while and is now transferring to our department.

Where I work, when people move offices their chairs go with them. It's really a good system because otherwise, inevitably, you end up with a random chair that has somebodies long gross hair stuck to it. No matter how much you take off, there is always more. But anyway. Chairs move with their people here.

Earlier this morning she was telling me that they didn't move her chair with all her other belongings and she's using one of the very un-ergonomic guest chairs right now.

Just now someone was in her office (across from mine) setting up the last few things for her. And I overhear the following exchange:

"They dint mooff my share!"

"... Your share?"

"My SHARE!!"

"...... Oh. your chair. "

I couldn't see it happening but I'm quite sure there was a lot of hand gesturing going on.

Too much information

Ever wonder what the heck is going on in bathrooms when people go? Trust me, if you had an office next to the staff bathrooms like I do, you would wonder.

Some take HOURS in the can, no newspaper, no Readers Digest, nothing but themselves in that tiny room... oh... OH! Well anyway, then we have timid tinklers who go in, close the door and run water at full blast for the entire time they're in there. Others fumigate the entire bathroom with green apple scented aerosol so that, after they escape, my office and the entire hallway smells like green apple and poo. If the bathrooms are occupied some people decide to go back to their desks while others come in to my office (uninvited!) and sit while they wait, and others stand cross-legged in the hall.

Mostly I wish I didn't have an office next to the bathrooms so I wouldn't know these things.

Arg!

The kind of people:

• who want you to inexplicably phone a man and ask about a "dongle"
• are racists, but are immigrants themselves
• can't work unless you're watching
• can't solve any problems unless you reason it out for them
  
• will not be where they are supposed to be 99% of the time
  
• will interrupt you working, because if you're there, it must be to visit them
• want you to throw a party and invite them
• want you to get married so you can invite them to the party
• want you to replace all the cables instead of troubleshooting crappy hardware
• send you error messages but don't tell you what application it was for
• send you 4 MB error messages via email
  
• ask you if you heard about a gang swarming but preface it by way of telling you a 15 minute story about visiting a 9 1/2 lb newborn in the hospital
• assume that you have the same interests and hobbies, and if by chance you do, just assume your interest or hobby is at the same level of crazy theirs is
  

Fun shirt

Some people I hung out with yesterday needed this shirt.

I don't understand how people can brag that they don't have a computer at home and cannot google, not even for work because they "CAN NEVER FIND ANYTHING!" :insert double pounding fists ridiculous sulk here:

It is because you do not practice the internet grasshopper. Also because you are a webtard. But it's ok, I still like you. Just not a whole lot.

Self Checkouts

What is the soccer mom with a cart full of goods doing at the grocery store lunch at the self checkouts?? Same with the Grams and Grandpops desperately trying to figure out this new-fangled technology! Seriously, the store employs people that will help you on check-outs 1-15... let the rest of us with a sandwich and a magazine just rush through already!

Spoiled!

This weekend a friend and I were discussing cars we wouldn't buy because they don't have spoilers, and cars that should have spoilers, but for whatever reason came without a spoiler, but shouldn't have. Like a Civic, of any year, looks ridiculous without a spoiler, especially the newer ones which look like eggs.

But here is the one car I wouldn't buy, even though as you can see, it has a very nice spoiler.

www.peopleofwalmart.com

Booyeah!

(click to enlarge)






For real.
Someone saved this song on their hard drive.

Toolbars: collect the whole set!

(click to enlarge)










I see you are missing a few toolbars! You should get on that!

honestly. what is wrong with people?

Done some good today

A former colleague showed my former supervisor (who is the most brilliant developer ever) how to redial on his phone today.

I provided insight to someone on how come their Outlook deleted items folder was highlighted bold and had a (1) beside it. They were sure it was because of a meeting request someone had sent, because it was the most unusual email they'd ever seen. (wow!) But no.

Yesterday a guy left work and called me on his way home to ask if I'd done something to his computer. I denied it. I totally had forgotten that I used his computer for about a minute because he has Acrobat Distiller and I needed a single image from a single page extracted from a PDF file and I'd sent it to myself, obviously using his email. When I clicked send, his email got hung up on our postal code and website address the signature so I added them to the dictionary. Because spell check is freaking annoying! He kept insisting that I'd "done something good" to his computer, something had changed... so he tried to explain it when I realized "oh! Right, I added those to the dictionary without thinking. Sorry, if you don't want that I can reverse that..."

"No no! it's something good! I didn't know you could do that!"

The poor guy has had email for 10 years and never noticed the add to dictionary spell check option. I had to show him how to do it on his own today, so that every time he emails some of our colleagues with interesting names it won't suggest alternate words. I used to work with a lady who's name wasn't in the dictionary and occasionally she'd get emails addressed to "Radish" -- which isn't even close!

Fun!

The concert last night was a lot of fun, and for a good cause. The best part though is hanging out with my sister and some friends all night long. My three favourite things about last night that had nothing to do with the actual music at the concert:

1. Bryan Adams is coming to Edmonton next week for a concert. I've thought he was a wanker since forever. My sister knows this hatred of mine and she agreed that we're boycotting the show. (not that we'd go anyway!)
2. AC/DC is coming to Edmonton tomorrow. In a surprising twist my sister declares her love for AC/DC.
   "Really? You?"
   "Yeah! 'I Saw The Sign' is one of the best songs ever!"
3. It was 10 pm before my sister heard a song she knew. She's the best for sticking it out... :)
   

Further confessions

In addition to secretly watching The Girls Next Door and openly liking country music I offer the following insight.

• I'm going to the Big & Rich concert tonight and I'm immensely looking forward to it.
• Who am I kidding, the last book I read was "The Book of Air And Shadows" in Cuba in April. It was fiction. I enjoyed it.
  
• The last thing I read from start to finish was either a gardening magazine (okoko, I looked at pictures) and several knitting patterns.
• I just spent $8 x 3 gorgeous buttons for a sweater I'm knitting.
  

I went to a wedding where I didn't know anyone, except for the person that invited me. This was something new and unusual for me! I've never just been a guest and not known the couple. It turns out weddings can be fun and relaxing! Who knew?

Well, the very fun part, besides it being on the River Queen and watching the dragonboat races because the wedding was delayed for over an hour, was observing the guests. As a special treat one of the female guests decided to wear a slinky purple lingerie-style gown without a bra. She was wrong, fer 'shur. The groom was a mechanic so all of his family and guests had handlebar moustaches, mullets, leather pants/chaps and vests with fringes!

Pip Squeak

Just took a very serious call from someone who's mouse I replaced today.

"Hi, what's up?"
"You know my new mouse? It squeaks. Did you know that?"

In fact, I did not.
In fact, I would not know that from ALL THE WAY OVER HERE.

I don't want.

I want a smock so I don't get dirty in the shop and they tell me smocks are a safety hazard and they could order me a jumpsuit or a uniform.

I WANT a SMOCK!!

And I want it to say "IT GIRL" on the name tag.

Hierarchy

Pom: A lady on my bus has a seven or eight assorted dog shirt. Is that better or worse than a 3 wolf moon combo?

M: Better, Definitely. 7 > 3, duh.

Help? Anyone?

Here's the kind of support call I have to decipher. No wonder I'm not getting any help:

I've been told that the backup is having problems again, but my question is if it's happening with the batch file that left created?.

Huh?

The mystery of the high-pitched whining.

Someone is complaining about the printer I replaced in their office.

Claim: The new printer produces a high-pitched whining noise ALL DAY LONG and drives them insane. (Oh really? You should try my job and see what high-pitched whining I have to deal with all day long!)

Work around: turn it off and then when it's time to print it takes "a while" to warm up. This is a disastor. Disastoooor!!!

I go and check it out and warm it up, but the person won't get up off their chair so I can get at it. The printer is in a corner of the desk, jammed in to the bookshelf. Finally I make them get up off their chair and I notice two empty vases sitting behind the printer and one of them has a metal flower decoration in it that is leaning against the next vase...

...in fact, it's tinkling, ever so slightly, ever so melodiously, against the next vase.

Tinkling.
All day long.

This is an example of a thing one cannot figure out for themselves.
You need an IT person to solve it.

The neighbours

From the vantage point of my bedroom window I counted seven wind chimes around their front door. SEVEN.

Four dogs.

Thirteen hockey sticks in a 5-gallon pail by the side door.

And their bedroom window is boarded up with plywood attached to the most gigantic A/C unit that runs loudly all night long.

I hate photocopiers.

Disaster 1: the photocopier in the back office is broken! You'd better come here quick, come fix it right now!

The details reported to me: the display is dark, definitely broken. even putting in paper and hitting copy doesn't work, so probably the whole copier is broken.

My troubleshooting strategy: walk over, turn on power, ask "fixed now?"

Outcome: oh.

---

Disaster 2: Do you have a manual for the photocopier. We want to fax a double sided document and don't know how because you didn't show us.

The details reported to me: found the manuals for the old copier in a dusty cupboard, can't find the new ones. getting irate that we can't find the new ones!!

My troubleshooting the 1st problem: walk over, locate manuals in the left-hand, handy side pocket.
2nd problem: look, you already know how to copy double sided and fax. Now blend that info in your head! Push the button "2 sided original" and then press "fax" -- done!

Outcome: you should probably cover that in the training sessions because it's very important!

Seriously?? In six months you can't be the first one to fax a double-sided document...

So awesome

Today we got a pieced/taped/photocopied resume, at the bottom of the page was hand written "Has Car".

Un-ingenuity

For fun sometimes I run stats on the network. Yes, stats are fun! Today I was curious: how many folders are on my network and shared drives with the default name "New Folder"?

New Folder: 46.
New Document: 15.

Troubleshooting

Me: my light bulbs are flickering. >:(
R: haha, you have too much stuff plugged in

Driving like a moron

A: If I were a cop I'd only pull over pontiacs.
M: I would too. They all drive terribly. Yesterday on my way to work I was passed by a neon on a donut spare while I was doing the limit + 10.
A: Ha ha awesome!

More Calculations.

Sometimes I wonder if I am a bad person? Like today when I had another encounter with summer student.

He wanted to borrow my graphing calculator to do some simple calculations and I wouldn't let him. I've had it ever since ever and it's my own personal calculator and I don't want it leaving my office or it will disappear.

I told him to use the calculator that comes with windows and he said "But I don't like using that one"

So then I offered him another calculator that is actually on the face of a ruler (it was a freebie I got while traveling this spring) and he said "No, that's just embarrassing".

So then I said well then use Excel. "But I don't know how."

"It's extremely simple" I said

"Well, I've never taken any classes in excel before"

"Look I'll show you. Click on a cell. Press the equals sign on your keyboard then a number then a plus or a minus (because that's the extent of what he has to do) and then another number and then hit enter."

Then he just mumbled something and started walking away saying something about "Well, whatever, it's just simple math I can do it in my head." (This coming from the guy I just helped convert kilometers to meters. )

"No," I said "Please do it on a calculator because we want it to be accurate."

So then he left and I'm hoping he chooses one of my alternatives or I'm just going to have to re-do it all. I just know it.

Boggle

I just had to help our summer student convert from kilometers to meters.

It's mind-boggling.


Last week he told me he either wants to be an industrial psychologist or go into pre-med. Yeeeeeeaaaaaa, I don't think so.

Virus alert

Today there was an all-out-emergency I got called on at lunch because someone had an extra space in their system icons tray and they were very suspicious that a virus was hiding in their system icons, masquerading as a blank.

I'll just let that sink in for a minute or so: a virus masquerading as a blank...

Time to be disconcerted

Today I was alerted by 2 perturbed staff that the time pushed to their PCs via my server and the time displayed on the phone system was out by TWO whole minutes since the last time change!! Oh the outrage if someone caught them going for lunch on the phone time and coming back at the PC time, they'd get two whole minutes extra of lunch! On top of that outrage they had noticed that the time clock for the back of the shop was also out a few seconds. Nothing I could be doing would be as important as fixing the time! Because by the next time change it would be as much as five or six minutes out!

And here I thought I was anal.

SMS

Marcella writes:

There is a woman sitting across from me wearing ankle weights with hot pink straps. She also has a tinkerbell bag.

Red Robins

My aviary friend, on his deck:
There's Red Robins making a nest under my deck
M: neat! they're just called robins you know...
A: Yes, but these specific ones are red
M: oh ok! i do like the red ones best

Wild Pelicans

Texting a friend, camping in the woods:
M: How's the forest?
A:There's WILD pelicans out here!
M: as opposed to zoo pelicans?
A: exactly!

Going camping

Three dudes at Canadian Tire stocking their shopping cart with everything (and I mean bare necessities) they'll need to go camping. Tent, sleeping bags, hot dog sticks, cooler, just about everything you could imagine. They got through the tills ahead of me and when I got to my car I realized that I had parked next to them. Everything they'd purchased was already stuffed into the trunk and the guy riding shot gun was in the passenger seat with a "Hawaiian Breeze" fan in a box on his lap.

Hawaiian Breeze, surely I thought, there is no way the product could live up to the hype.

Everything else they'd purchased was camping gear, so I'm not sure how the fan fit in. I am really curious about it.

Random Text

I have recently fallen in love with Google Reader, and on my reader I am subscribed to a site that posts witty, hilarious, random and often obscene text messages. But random. That's the word we'll focus on because it reminds me of the story of how I found out my cousin in Vancouver had gotten a new cell phone number.

M and I both work in downtown and often share stories of the strange things that we witness on our way to or from work or at lunch. So I text her the following:

"There is this particularly aggressive homeless man that always stands on the same corner holding his crotch. I have no idea what it's about but I am afraid."

In response I get: "Who is this?" which actually wasn't all that surprising because I haven't texted Monika in a long time (we usually converse over email.)

I say: "haha, this is Marcella"

"wrong number i am assuming? :) "

I respond (still thinking it's my cousin and assuming she doesn't have my cell phone programmed in hers so she doesn't recognize my number... obviously not very quick to catch on): "Not if you're my cousin M!"

"nope i'm michael."

At this point I have to apologize as profusely as I can over texting and try to explain what would be a rather disturbing text from a complete stranger. Luckily he had a good sense of humour about it and texts back: "no problem it's not every day i get random entertaining texts"

Upon further investigation, turns out M had gotten a new number two years before this texting happened. Like I said.... we usually only do email.

It's a good thing I actually don't know Michael or even live in the same city as him because otherwise it would have been REALLY embarrassing.

Un-Athleticism

Last night we were kicking the soccer ball around the back yard and now my toe is kind of swollen and really hurts this morning. So much so that I had to wear my ugly klunky comfortable shoes to work today. I am REALLY terrible and uncoordinated at things like sports.

It makes me laugh because Reinhard is so patient and tries to teach me how to do these things better. I told him it was training for him to teach our future kids how to kick balls around. He laughed and said he really hopes our kids are more coordinated and athletic than I am. Hahahahahahaha! It's especially funny because I can tell he's actually very concerned about it!

Did I get tele-transported to the 1950s?

On Friday I got home from work before my husband and the doorbell rings. I answer and it's the APX Security System salesman that I've seen walking around the neighborhood that week.

"Is the home-owner in?" he asks. "Uh-huh." I look expectantly at him for a few moments until I realize he's waiting for me to go get the owner. "It's me." I say and he gets all flustered as if he's never seen someone young owning a house before. But then before I can tell him I'm not interested he quickly launches into his spiel and I can't get a word in for a couple minutes until he asks me how many exterior doors I have. He's informed me that "exterior doors are the most common entry way for burglars to get into your house!" (WHAT??? NO Duh! Am I an idiot??)

"So how many exterior doors do you have?"

"Actually I'm going to stop you there because I'm not interested in your security system."

"Oh. Is it... Is it because your husband isn't home yet?"

I think to myself WTF!!

"NO, It's because I'm actually not interested in your security system. Not even a little bit"

"Oh. Well is there a time when I could come back again and speak to your husband?"

"No. I'm 99.9999% sure he is also not interested."

Huh? What year is it? I realize that I am a woman, but I am actually capable of making decisions. Seriously.

Snippy?

In my job, my coworkers and I tend to have to run after people to get information and sometimes people don't appreciate us all that much. Take for example the following response after reminding someone that they still hadn't send the required information requested on April 22nd:

"I apologize for the massive delay in getting you the data that you need to perform your job, we will shut-down and get on it right after the MANDATORY training that has been thrust upon us Monday. However, here in Cushing we do not hire staff that we do not have work for, and every one of us here has a full 40 hour plate of tasks every day. It is difficult, sometimes impossible to perform our task of keeping the DOT satisfied / pipeline running /attending mandatory meetings / training and then get to tasks that are beyond our job scope."

Tee hee. Snippy? I think maybe. I do of course feel bad for them as I know they are busy so maybe I will not yet point out that it is actually part of his job scope as the VP of Operations has made it part of his job performance review.

A list

I made a list of everyone that needs a new computer around here: Everyone.

HTH KTHXBAI!!!

Creating Noise

A: The good news is I didn’t get a ticket on the way to work.
M: ahahahahah
A: It’s hard to get a speeding ticket when you’re in bumper to bumper traffic, hitting every red light on the way to work.
M: yeah that's true. me too... I keep on being late to work. Everyone here shows up early and leaves late. It's so weird, it's like they like working or like their jobs.
A: Maybe it’s a cultural thing? :)
M: i guess huh? being German and all?
A: Yeah… you said, not me. A good work ethic is the backbone to a good economy.
M: HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAH... true true! I just helped someone play a CD in their computer. It's a good thing we have an IT person on staff!
A: You can play cd’s on the computer now???
M: no you can't actually, they don't have a cord to plug into the machine.
A: Oh, like a cord from the computer to the speakers, or that thin little cable that goes from the cd drive to the sound card?
M: a cd is just a round disc, there is no cable on it, you have to buy a cd adaptor at Future Store fyi. Until then you can't use it for anything but coasters.

Little Boy, Dumb Parents

I am all for unique children's names, but my goodness some take it a little far. In the doctor's office last week a five year old came in with his mother, who announced the name to the receptionist, who promptly replied "huh?"

The little guy piped up in a 'whoo-hoo-I-know-how-to-spell-my-name-now-that-I'm-almost-through-kindergarden' way "TALON. T-A-L-O-N!"

D-U-M-B P-A-R-E-N-T

Bull

I'm loading programs from a CNC machine in the back that we're selling off and I find:
program number: 6969
program description: ED'S COCK RING

Good grief. I am loading a bunch of nonsense into the database on the fileserver. Ed's at least 70 years old.









We make weird things like nipples and ball catchers, but I'm calling bullshit on program 6969.

You vant vaaatt???

Home Depot. A beautiful and competent Eastern European lady helping me in the paint department... she'd magically matched a colour I brought in from a stick I'd used to stir an old can of paint and I was stoked -- someone who could seriously help me! I had another can of old paint I sort of liked but had not enough of to do a whole room. So I asked her since she could match colour off a stir stick if she could also find a CIL brand-colour in her computer called "Prism White".

"You vant vaaatt colour?" in total confusion.
"Prism white. PRISM white" I attempted to enunciate very clearly, but to be honest it's a weird word.
Aghast: "PRISON??? PRISON VITE?"
"No! no! Prism, P-R-I-S-M"
"SM?? Em?? You sure?"
"Yes, P-R-I-S-M, a prism is a crystal that reflects light..."

Hahaha, but prison white would be awesome too...


Someone who did speak English did post this sign and of course it made me laugh to consider my rooms decorum.














But not as much as this boob light... it's a Madonna (circa 1980s) boob light!

10 things I don't like at all

1. Computers. My life now is one giant fail.
2. Painting. This is the worst of all the home fixing things I can think of.
   
3. Standing in steel toed boots all day.
4. Spam from people you know.
5. Exercise.
6. People with no common sense.
7. Economic recessions.
8. People with no small-talk social skills.
9. Cell phones when they drop calls.
10. PowerPoint (exception: if used in cases of irony.)
    

10 things I like a lot

1. Brussel sprouts
2. Sunshine
3. Cats
   
4. Spring
5. Cheese of any kind
   
6. Flowers
7. Yarn
8. Books
9. My Blackberry
10. Being the boss of everything
    

Also not ok

After dinner to pick up the cheque. I mean, to pick up the cheque while you're say "I can expense this!"

And you trust me for this??

So over the last year I have been the Project Lead for a new system at work that will greatly increase the speed at which we can provide two of our department's service offerings. It has recently been put into production which is super exciting for me because I designed it all from scratch. The concept, logic and design came out of my head which I then transferred to pieces of paper and gave off to people to build it for me.

Now it is in production and it is saving other people literally weeks of time on every project they do. That in itself makes me pretty happy. It's like seeing your child become both the smartest and most popular kid at school.

And then I think "Whoa, someone actually trusted me to directly influence how three-quarters of a million dollars is spent?!?!?"

It is not ok

• It is not ok to blame shyness on having absolutely no interest in other people and letting them talk for an hour and a half until they're completely hoarse and not only want to kill themselves but you first.
• It is not ok to blame shyness on having no coping strategy for making small talk with other adults who seem to have a lot in common with you.
• It is not ok to say "I don't drink coffee" when someone asks you if you want to go for coffee. (what are you, retarded? It's a conceptual metaphor! I don't care what you drink!)
• It is not ok to say "I work" when someone asks you what you do.
• It's not ok to follow that with "Downtown" or "In an office" when someone says "Oh I meant where do you work?"
• It's not ok to call someone 6 months after they have told you they are "too busy" to see if they have more free time now. Too busy, I'm washing my hair, I'm just not that into you = you suck, please drop dead.
  

Lunch

I know I probably shouldn't, but I find it terribly amusing that our department's director brings juice boxes for lunch. I wonder if he has a spiderman lunch box too!

Weird

I received a response from Shaw today that the CRTC ordered that each household phone line must be provided a white and a yellow pages. Thank you for being choosing Shaw, you can take up your complaint with the CRTC and with Yellow Pages directly.

Awesome! Yellow Pages site and 1-800 is totally not helpful (you can order another copy but not opt-out) and the CRTC just lists the order for everyone to get a white and yellow pages. Whereby and Whereas it has been Decreed in 1984 that everyone should love a personal copy of Ye Olde Telephone Directory.

I guess I am not the only person who is stymied from going green by old technology printers scared whitless for their jobs and of course, our favourite to hate: the Government.

I did my part, I emailed both the CRTC and Yellow Pages in protest. I think you should too.

Happy Earth Day!

On the Shaw website:

Making a difference for our planet today.
What are you doing to help?
Make a difference with Shaw on Earth Day April 22, 2009.

Here's what I submitted:

Dear Shaw Cable, I would like to make a difference with Shaw on Earth Day April 22, 2009 by protesting the fact that I received a yellow pages and a white from you this past month. I would like to opt out of receiving this archaic and bulky monstrosity which is deposited directly into the recycling anyway. Thank you.

Filed: in the trash

Some jerk walked in off the street to fill out a job application form which we don't do... We want resumes just like every other place.

Well, he had one.

But only one so our receptionist was going to take a copy and he said she should make him about five copies. What the hell!!? I told him that we'd take one copy for ourselves and he can copy them on his own if he needs others.

I don't care about the 5 cents it costs to print plus paper but if you're trying to get a job maybe you should be prepared to make a good impression?? Here's a tip: don't piss off the receptionist. Or me, if I'm standing nearby.

I made her file it alright.

Cyan

Called a supply company for a toner cartridge for a colour printer and the woman said "Which colour do you need, there's black, 'cai-anne', magenta and yellow."

I actually giggled out loud then started coughing to cover it up. Maybe she thinks cayenne and cyan are the same colour? Anyhow, I was ordering plain ol' black.

Is it home time??

i figured out how to look at the DHCP logs today.
i figured out how to link the AD to my firewall.
i guess I can go home now.

:brainfull:

Reply All

So I am sitting at my desk when someone sends out a test email (subject line "test", blank message body) to test the bulk mailers that send emails to the whole organization. A legitimate email.

Then one guy replied all: "Did I pass the test??"
Then another woman also replied all: "I’m not sure why I received it."
Then someone else replied all: "Test? There was a test? Nobody told me! Aaaaaggghhhh………"

Then another guy replied all: "Be careful when replying “All” This e-mail went out to the entire organization. As did James’."
Which is really what everyone else was thinking. But then HE replied all.
Half a second later he recalled his message.

people are idiots. just fyi.

oh ya, and all this took place in less than 5 minutes.
Do people not think before sending out emails anymore?

Walking

I walked past a lady not very much older than me carrying a walkman.

Mix tape?

Probably!

Error

Sometimes you have to laugh when someone tells you they can't print and you go and click buttons and something as stupid as this error message is thrown by the program that everyone loves to hate:

yield

Yes I will yield the right of way to the lady driving the mini-van and eating a burger!

Shampoo

Remember when the word "shampooing" on the bottle would make us laugh uncontrollably?

Stupid IE

If you want to include a CSS hack for IE in your CSS then you must use /* IE Browsers */ comments, which is nothing like creating all your styles in a separate CSS and hacking it in your HTML

In your HTML it looks kind of like this: (please excuse the weird spacing around the comments, Blogger has issues with pointy brackets)

< ! --[if IE]>
Special instructions for IE here
< ! [endif] -- >

vs the much superior CSS inline:

img {
bottom: -1px; /* IE Browsers */
bottom: 0px;
}

See the if else?? No? Me either, but this took me a few days so I should probably write it down.

If I wanted a decaf I would order it.

PL: ok so I went and got coffees for everyone...
and there's always someone who can't friggin remember what they wanted and insists they had something else and wants your coffee.
Marcella: hahahaha
PL: so i'm drinking a decaf with 1 milk
wtf.
Marcella: you should make people write it down
PL: yeah we write it down but we should make them write it down so it's in their handwriting.
i wrote it down for this person and they always want something else.
what is wrong with people who don't have a standard drink?
Marcella: a lot
PL: PICK ONE AND STICK WITH IT
Jimmy always gets a half French vanilla half coffee.
always.
so even though it's weird, it's always standard
Marcella: why are you getting coffees for ppl?
PL: I wanted an excuse to leave work for a bit, that's why I got coffees for people
Marcella: ah

Notice:

I would like all small town restaurants to know that Kraft Singles Slices are not a viable substitute to real cheese. Not ever.

Yesterday I had the misfortune to be served French Onion soup with a mozarella (if you can call it that) Kraft Slice melted on top. *Shudder*

I'd just like to say

Holy Potholes Batman!

On being cool

PL: so i ordered safety glasses from amazon and they are AMAZING
for one thing, they tint when I go outside.
for another thing, they look cool.
Marcella: hahahahahaha
you are hilarious
PL: seriously, I am so cool with my safety glasses and boots.

Oh wait.

On the Phone

I picked up the ringing phone and said "Maria calling" instead of "Maria speaking." Eeep! Luckily it was a vendor that looks like Tintin and drives an older Mazda like me. That he looks like Tintin has nothing to do with the story, but we talk, we are friendly. He made fun of me because it's obviously Monday.

Thin Client

On my desk, a thin client to try out in the shop.

"Hey! What's this neat thing??"
"Well, it's called a thin client, it's a computer without any movable parts."
"Sorta like a Mac hey?"
"...actually, no... what?"
"Sorta like a Mac, it's all one piece and it's real tiny and it's like a Mac."
"...actually, no. Nothing at all like a Mac."
"Well what I mean is that it's all thin and the screen is attached."
"...um, well it can be mounted on the backside of a monitor, but the monitor is still separate, so it's not like a Mac. What it really is like is a PC without any movable parts, no fan and the processing happens on the server, so you can't actually log into this thing, although it will seem like it, but it's really that you're logging into a session on the server."
"But what I'm saying is that it's small, like a Mac."
"Ok, you're right, it's small and exactly like a Mac."

Diana will kill me for agreeing.

How does this happen!?!?

-40.7 to -8??




I just told someone we couldn't do a fire drill today. I'm not sure if he was kidding or not.

-40 at 8am

Belated Christmas Present

I was sitting quietly in my cubicle at work on Feb. 23 minding my own business when the lady that distributes mail came up to me and gave me a package. I opened it up and found a Christmas/New Year's present from one of our vendors. It was a pottery mug with their company name on it along with my name.

It really is very nice, except that the mug is broken and my name is spelled wrong. Pretty sad considering I email with them all the time and they should know how to spell it. My co-workers Yanping and Ingrid each got one too but their mugs said "Lee Ann" and "Craig".

Up-do

I put my hair in an up-do today and everyone at work is complimenting me on how nice it looks.

Little do they know our hot water tank burst last night and the up-do is only a result of not being able to shower and wash my hair this morning.

Snow sucks

I'm going to have shoulders like a brick layer from hoisting the shovel over my head to perch all the new snow precariously on top of my recreation of the Alps.

In my purse

I've a habit of carrying things in my purse because they're handy. My sister does the same. I've got a little fold-up pliers-screwdrivers toolkit in mine and she's got a measuring tape among other things.

So then is it any surprise that occasionally I'll carry food stuffs? Today my lovely sister sent along some fresh baked bread for me. "Oh yummy!" I said, "good thing I've got butter in my purse!"

Thank you, here is a cookie (#).

We all expect everything to magically work every time all the time. So to be like no one else I would like to show my appreciation for IT help, here have another I ate way too many this morning.... (#).

Ew stink

In a fancy bottle at Winners:

Pecksniff's Mood Therapy Aromatherapy Lotion.

I checked it 3 times.

Adorable and hilarious

A four year old boy trying to lose his mother in Winners with a homemade arts & crafts-style sign hanging around his neck with the words "I'm special!"

Troubleshoot my internet pls!

Angrifying. People who get a hold of me:

1. at my parents house
   
2. after 10 pm
3. to troubleshoot their internets and emails
4. over the phone.

YES, of course if you used a capital letter in your password it matters!

Email invites

For a birthday party it's cool. But for a wedding?

Consider:

• the bride saves stamps
• she gets you to download the invite from a free file sharing site where you have to endure ads before you get to download
• then it turns out to be a powerpoint and we all know how evil powerpoint is (except when you are using it for irony)
• and then they ask for cash gifts instead of presents.
  

Today after work (and after my other work) I stopped at Safeway to pick up a lemon and a lime and a rice pudding and in the express lane was this older lady (not really old, but really stupid) who had a bill of $5.05.

So she scrounged in her purse and finally found her Club Card, but then she couldn't find her Airmiles, but then she wanted to pay the 5 cents in pennies and the 5 bucks on her gift card, but then her gift card was empty so she told the cashier "Well YOU PEOPLE should really look into that..." (but the cashier Had. Just. Swiped. It. Arg!!) and then she scrounged some more for a 5 dollar bill which she was sure she had in her purse and when she found it she started looking for her keys and when she found her keys she also found her Airmiles card which she still wanted credited... on my way out she was at the customer service desk getting The Mystery Of The Empty Gift Card looked into and the lady was telling her she must have spent it all. Luckily I had no business at the Customer Service Desk. Or else my head would have exploded.

Someone came into my office complaining that when he typed his words would randomly disappear... I had NO idea what in the world he was talking about. So he showed me.

Turns out he had NO idea that the Insert key has two different modes -- insert and overwrite. I'm explaining concepts to people I don't remember ever NOT knowing...

Today? Someone complained to me that it takes exactly 41 clicks of the mouse to complete some task in our system "and I don't mind telling you, Maria, that's about 41 clicks too many."

www.fmylife.com

>:( Like I care.

Tea, bacon and mustard.

Tea, bacon and mustard.
Those are all the things that have sullied my pants today.
It's been a good day.

Do you have a minute?

I love it when people say "do you have a minute to come to my desk to see something?" and they show me that their login has expired or account has been locked. And by love it, I mean it's not really something I need to see, since I can't fix it at your desk and since I can in fact fix it from MY desk where I was comfortably sitting and drinking my tea when you so rudely interrupted me.

Happily, I'm much getting better at saying "I'm not getting off my arse to come over there... what do you want?"

Annonymity

I'm pleased I'm still not findable.

Sir Spamalot

In my inbox:

Your bulge will be so noticeable you will have to wear a kilt.

hahahahahahhahahhahahahhahahaaaaa... this explains kilt wearing.

If you give a man a new photocopier Part II

If you give a man a new photocopier
chances are he will remember only a quarter of all that it can do,
but chances are he'll never remember how to do it on the new copier,
but chances are he'll remember exactly which 2 buttons did it on the old copier,
and chances are he'll hold it against you that now he can colour copy and do mixed media within the same batch, and collate and secure print or duplex scan images in full colour.

If you give a man a new photocopier,
well chances are you should just give up now because you'll never hear the end of it.

If you give a man a new photocopier

If you give a man a new photocopier,
chances are he'll use it for business purposes, but not often,
chances are he'll want to photocopy his ID, birth certificate and fax his insurance, and
chances are he'll have remembered nothing from the hour and a half introduction to the machine.
But after banging around the lid of the copier and kicking the equipment in the paper trays a few times you'll offer to show him how to use card shot and multi shot so he'll stop yelling and disrupting other people in the offices nearby.
If you show him how to use card shot and multi shot,
chances are he'll want to do it in full colour, and
chances are it'll take a few tries to get it right, and
chances are then finally he'll decide he could just scan himself the image in pdf.
If you show him how to use card shot and multi shot
chances are he'll just get the two mixed up anyway and you'll be back to the kicking and yelling and slamming.
So you'll offer to do it for him.
And chances are that's all he wanted in the first place.

Stupid jerk.

An overview and a summary.

I was sent a 80 page "overview" release document on the upgrade to the next version of a software we use. The "summary" was 193 pages.

It didn't have any pictures in it.

So I deleted it.

The internet.com is slow

Since Friday. This is somehow my fault, because I have been receiving calls about it even at home, where people have complained about low-seeded torrent files and ESSO pay-at-the-pump being unresponsive.

Turns out, at my shop, I'm sort of responsible for the internet being slow -- after 4 months in service our firewall logfiles were full (i.e. the internet was all bunged-up). Yup, we had a good purge and plunged out all that and now the internets are fast again!

Happy New Year!

What statue of limitations is there on saying Happy New Year? I thought surely the novelty has worn off by now... but no, sadly it has not. This is concerning for someone like me who often forgets the niceties in conversations, and especially in emails because I have a point and want to get to it before I forget why I'm emailing!

The plan:

The plan: picky eating as a form of weight control.

Man, I should write a book!!

That's gonna leave a mark

I ended up on the floor with my chair on top of me after trying to kick the cord of a dead printer out of the way and roll over it at the same time.

*ungeschickt* + headshake

I can't believe no one came running to rescue me, or at least point and laugh seeing as how the crash I produced was as loud as purposely throwing a chair against a wall... and we have cameras all over the office to catch just those sorts of moments!

>shhh!<

Disaster

After a happy week of cat-sitting we spent 15 minutes looking for the cat... calling to him and whistling and rattling his food. Finally we were searching with flashlights and ladders and looking in closets only to have the 4-year old say "what are you looking for? I put Turbo under the kitchen sink!"

Poor Turbo who, locked into a cupboard, didn't say a peep. Probably hoping not to be discovered so he wouldn't have to go home from his relaxing vacation!