Tooting one's horn!

I interviewed a technical support company today who's representative decided the best place to start answering the question "what is your technical background so that I may understand your expertise" was to start with "back when René Lévesque started politicking in Quebec I was working as..." and then put me to sleep three times before the end of that story.

Yes. I can see how you have loads of relevent expertise. (I hoped nodding off looked like nodding in encouragement.)

Then at 4 pm the trumpet sounded. I thought it might be the rapture, but it was only the soccer hooligan trumpet ordered online. Which means, tomorrow, I will still have to show up for work.

SMS exchange

I'm wearing my underwear inside out today. Accidentally. The tag itches.

You know what's ghetto? Going to the bottle depot so I have lunch money.

A girl at the till has a tiny bear chain hanging out of her shirt, by pulling on it she just pulled an iFone out of her boobs. Keeping it classy at the Millwoods Mall!

haha, awesome, best mall ever! I dug a hole today.

Crazy. What did you put in the hole, your neighbours' dog I'm guessing.

I wish. So I had Alberta One Call come out to mark my property for the fence. I complained to my parents they only marked the gas line. They looked at me funny because I totally couldn't see the other markings. Boy, I'm colourblind.

Aahahahahahahaha! This impediment you have makes me laugh my head off. I am sorry for laughing but thanks so much for sharing!

My dad was like what's wrong with you?? Can't you see the lines painted on the grass?? Duh!

You could only see the yellow lines, awe! Seriously, I'm still laughing.

Poof!

Check it out -- I'm standing at my desk and a toner cartridge has just exploded ALL over my desk, floor, face.... FACE. YUCK! TONER ON MY FACE!! And someone comes charging in with an invoice they don't know who it belongs to and ask if they can leave it for me to figure out to whom it should be routed. Invoices, BTW, don't plug in or have batteries. And I have toner on my face!

I probably looked slightly unhinged holding a cartridge that just *poofed* all over!

They didn't even blink.

Maybe I look like PigPen all the time?

Aquanet SMS

PS to PL:

I got a new hairspray for

$1.99 and my head feels 

like a helmet!

Last week I slept in the bed in a room in my parents house that I grew up in. Thinking about funny things that we did as kids. Like gnawing on the bunkbeds - I have no idea why but I wasn't the only one who liked the weird taste of that old varnish. And melted cheese sandwiches. Just cheese and bread and a microwave kept us super happy.

There's a room in the basement with floor to ceiling built-in shelves with a veritable library collected by my Mother. I went looking for the cat one afternoon and saw something that looked like possibly a squashed spider on the wall beside a hammock my Father can't bear to use outside in the garden. Upon inspection it was not a spider at all but a jolly green booger! I grabbed a tissue but it was so encrusted I gave up and got a wet cloth... at which point the booger came off with the paint!! When my little cousins come over they spend hours reading old Hardy Boys mystery books and comics and playing games in this room so I'm fairly certain this booger may belong to one of them.

Whatever furniture we may have gnawed on as children we did not deposit our nose-gold on things! (not that I will admit to anyway!)

Do you know what day it is?

Fixing other people's PCs means you get to touch a lot of dirty keyboards and mice and see how really filthy people are... and observe their weird desk collections of Anne Geddes postcards, Happy Meal toys and cat pictures. The worst is needing to write something down and only finding chewed on pens and pencils.

Today's weird: a calendar collection consisting of three Nascar, three oil field supply vendor, a desk blotter-type and a flip-style calendar from a bank.  It's April 22. Half of them were still on March, with the exception of the desk calendar which was on September 2008.

Homemade

A conversation in which I expound on the most amazing pizza I made on Saturday:

"... it was so awesome, possibly the best pizza ever made!"
"Whatever! You probably put zucchini and squash and nasty stuff on it!"
heehee... I would have had I thought of it! "No, I only put good stuff on it. It was really great."
"Ok prove it. What meat did you put on?"
"Salami. What? I didn't have pepperoni!"
"Ok fine. Cheese?"
"Feta and Monterey Jack."
"EW!!! SEE, that is gross, why didn't you use Mozzarella, the only good kind of cheese to use on pizza?"
"I like the flavours of feta and Jack."
"If you mean sick flavours. With weird textures. You've just eliminated yourself from the-best-pizza-ever contest. What else?"
"Well I didn't have any pizza sauce..."
"WHAT!? SICK! Ok what did you use??"
"Ketchup and Italian dressing, just a bit so the crust didn't dry out."
"You are getting to be like a grandma! YOUR Oma, putting weird stuff on pizzas!"


Whatever! It was a really tasty Wurst-kuchen. It did not have Cheese Whiz or Kraft Single Slices on it so it wasn't that bad.

Big cry baby

I'm the kind of person who lays on the couch when I have the flu sending out text messages to my friends and family such as:
"my nose boogies are glowing green"
"i might only have a few more hours to live, i just expelled a lung"
"the man who walks his cat on a leash three times a week has a wife who's walking laps around the block with her hair in curlers. i got a picture"

Here's the proof:

That durn server!

I got a new server at work to play with a month ago and it's been the greatest thing since sliced bread. Runs fast, really fast. I installed our old ERP software on it and it functions brilliantly. Now if only the new version software we wanted to run on it would arrive, we'd be in business... or, more in business than we already are.

But users in my office have started blaming the server for every little thing. If they can't see video on Youtube, can't get sound, can't login, can't remember their password they'll call and complain "ever since that new server! I'm tellin' ya! Ever since you installed that new server I can't...< insert lame excuse here >."

It's too bad the new server is actually not turned on. Maybe I'd believe them.

New Legislation

There should be some sort of law banning people from bringing McDonald's outside of McDonald's and stinking up the world. It's nasty.

I'm just saying is all...

Office creep of the day

Silently stands in your office doorway without making a sound until your neck-hairs stand on end and goosebumps alert you to their presence behind you.

Maybe the Jaws theme is playing in their head when they sneak up behind you: duh-duh. duh-duh. duh-duh.

Playing in my head? The Psycho theme: skree!skree!skree!skree!

Why not say "Hi" or clear your throat if you want my attention Boob!

What!?

From my favourite person, who calls all day long:

"Hey are you busy?"
"Yes, always. What's up?" (that's my favourite line, I use it all the time. What!? It's a dumb question!)
"Do you know about The Hockey?"
"THE Hockey? What?"
"I didn't want you to feel left out about the hockey, and think no one asked you."
"What?"
"There's this hockey pool."
"Oh, sorry I'm not interested."
"Well I didn't want you to think no one asked you because..." I wondered if he would have said...because you're a girl?
"Yeah sorry, I'm really not interested."
"So you don't have anyone that would pick for you?"
"Nope."
"Ok because we're having a hockey pool and you don't have to be left out."
"Yes I get that. Sorry I am not interested in a hockey pool."

Waitaminit, why am I apologizing to him for just not being interested in a hockey pool?!

It's just so obviously awesome...

Awesome show at work:
I schedule a pick up by UPS for my laptop that is going back to Hoolit-Pakurd and leave it at the front desk.

Unrelated of course Purolator decides to come at lunch... and a surly guy in shipping who refuses to "work" over lunch (or very much at any point during the day) sends them to the front office.

Which is locked for lunch. Because that's just how we roll.

Purolator calls our office and leaves a voicemail that we have to call to reschedule pick-up.

But the receptionist knows I'm waiting for UPS forwards the message to me, since obviously Purolator and UPS are mixed up in my head. Because I'm blonde and she is not you know.

Meanwhile when I get back from lunch I forward the call to the shipping office and get the one guy who does everyone's work and ask "soooo... you still waiting for Purolator to come?"
YES
Because, of course, one has nothing to do with the other.

On top of which the box shipping had for Purolator to pick up was right in front of the surly guy who cannot see the forest for all the trees.

Ugh

To make a long story short I still am waiting for UPS and they are still waiting for Purolator to show up.

It's just so awesome around here.

Greetings earthlings!

Honestly, who was the first nerdy Geek that ever decided that "Greetings!" was the most appropriate friendly salutation for email and voicemail? And why do they all do it? They pull their pants up to their armpits, wear white socks with black shoes and love fake-formality.

It's 3:17 AM, do you know where you are?

When people start realizing how stupid their questions are and still ask them with the preface "this is probably a stupid question but..." I start to wonder what the point of them working here is, because the point of me working here is to sort out their trivial problems and would it be faster if we just cut out the middle guy?

"This is probably a really dumb question but if my email says time received 3:17 AM is that the time the email was sent or received?"
 
I want to say: Really? That is a brain tickler for you?? But I am a good person so I don't! Instead I say: "Received. The time received is the time in our time zone it was received. Google his location and you'll find out what time it was in his time zone."

"He's in *country name*."

So I Google it myself. "10 hours ahead of us."

"Well he wants to call me about something but I'm not at work at 3:17 AM."

"You can also use Google to find out if there's any meeting time that overlaps." *google it for 2 seconds, send link* "I'm showing 7AM our time is 5PM their time."

"Ok..." then indignant "Well yeah because I'm not at work at 3:17 AM and I'm not coming in then either! Ha ha!"

Ha! You should be on a comedy show.

Inappropriate Attire

I have a crazy neighbour. Well, I guess he's not technically crazy so much as obsessive compulsive and hilarious but I still like calling him my crazy neighbour Sam. He's got 5 inside cats, works from home (which allows him to be a one-man neighbourhood watch) and he loves shoveling snow. Like 7 times a day starting at 5am.

Although he does like my cat, he has made it obvious that he does not generally approve of my cat being allowed to roam freely outdoors because you never know what could happen to her. There are cars! and mean people! and maybe even coyotes! When we first started letting her outside he dutifully brought her back to us 3 - 4 times before he realized we were actually OK with her being outside by herself. So naturally, when my husband called down to me from upstairs that Sam was coming to see me I assumed it would be something about him noticing my cat was sitting near a car or something equally dangerous.

I answer the door and see Sam standing there in nothing but an undershirt and hip waders.

Since it's my crazy neighbor Sam this doesn't really register in my brain as unusual. He asks if he can borrow my phone since he's lost his in his house. I think to myself 'Ok, that is reasonable, I too have lost my cellphone in my house'. I go to the kitchen to get it and he shouts out after me 'And I actually do have a good reason as to why I'm in hip waders!'

Me (just now realizing it is weird considering that most lakes are still frozen and we're also millions of kilometers from any real water source): "Oh yeah.... why are you in hip waders, Sam?

Sam: "Well, you see.... I was getting some Easter stuff ready for the nieces & nephews and accidentally locked the door between the house and garage when I went into the garage. And well, you see... normally when I'm walking around the house I only wear an undershirt and underwear... and well you see, I couldn't really pull the undershirt down far enough to be decent (envision a 50-something, pony-tailed, ex-hippie tugging at his imaginary undershirt over top of his waders) and the only thing I had in the garage were these waders, so......"

100% absolutely certain you are wrong

I hate it so much when people come to me and argue they are *100% absolutely certain* of something that they're completely wrong about. For example someone complained that up until just last week they used to be able to log off someone else if the desktop was locked. Now it says you have to be the administrator. They're willing to argue to the death with me that is how it worked up until last week and now it doesn't anymore. With all the authority they can muster they order me to change it back.

So I tell them, no I'm sorry, you must misremember that because it never worked that way and it is designed not to work that way.

Well can you change it back?

Listen you: ONLY IN YOUR MIND DID IT EVER WORK THAT WAY. IT CANNOT WORK THAT WAY.

Well it did used to work that way.

IT DID NOT. IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY. I CANNOT HELP YOU.

Well can you change it back?

LISTEN UP, LISTEN CAREFULLY:
IT DOES NOT WORK THAT WAY.
IT NEVER WORKED THAT WAY.

Well it did. And it's really annoying now!

SO ARE YOU. TAKE YOUR SUNGLASSES OFF WHEN YOU TALK TO ME. WE ARE INSIDE A BUILDING WITH NO WINDOWS.

Seriously, it did work that way. Change it back!

IT MUST BE REALLY SUNNY IN THAT MAGICAL WORLD OF YOURS.

keeping the standards low.

Today I was on the bus and it smelled like a mixture of alcohol and little caesars pizza. Then I thought to myself 'well, I guess that's better than pee.'

What?

Someone brings me a print out of a failed-to-send-email notice and asks "What could make it fail?"

"The wrong email address."

"No. It's not wrong."

"No? Well if it's not the wrong address it could be that their email server was down, that's the only other very obvious reason."

"No. It must be on our end... Oh wait, I spelled the guy's name wrong."

Yup. That would make it fail.

Crazy neighbour update

The kid next door that has been playing in and around my compost heap (yes, in the heap) took one of their four dogs for a walk at lunch today. And it lasted for more than 15 minutes. This is the first time I've ever seen anyone walk any of the dogs. I was pretty sure poor thing had forgotten what its legs were for.