"You want it when??"

This picture commemorates Mame and me at Bizarroworld, when we were the dynamic duo, dealing with crazies and lazies and everything in between. I love it! She manages her polite professionalism (while probably visualizing something terribly violent), and I have a world-weary word warrior look on my mug.

'Tis the Season

Ah, yes, baking season. Spice Chick's led off the holiday baking season with her famous garlic shortbread. *CHOKE*

She must've used the same cutting board or else has an old wooden one that's infused with garlic. I was halfway through a piece of that shortbread when the garlic attacked my tastebuds. ACK!

People: don't cross your cutting boards! Use one for savory, one for sweet -- and if you simply refuse to have two boards, at least wash the hell out of it and sniff-test it before throwing some dough on it. Christ!!!

I threw the damned stuff in the trash and filled my mouth with baby carrots to try to exorcise the taste in my mouth.

Down with the sickness

I'm taking a sick day from work today; I actually do feel sick, and I'm sure that being at work will only make me feel sicker, yes? Best to stay home and get better than go to work and get sicker. Sure, it'd be best to go in and get everybody else sick, and then take tomorrow off, landing me a three-day weekend, but oh, well.

So, I watched ANTM last night, and what's-her-name quit the show when the time came for the judging. She actually wasn't going to be picked, but jumped the gun and quit, instead, earning the Contempt of Tyra(tm)! She was the gal who looked like she should be a 70s drug dealer's girlfriend in a movie, or something.

I'm definitely rooting for Heather in this. Lisa's really attractive, but has a kind of empty-eyed look and kittenish insecurity that's not appealing. I like that gal (Jenah, maybe??) who has the goose egg eyes and blonde hair who's not impressive in motion, but who nails it with the pictures. She reminds me of a gal I knew from college, except that she's bottled blonde. The so-called "plus sized" model is sort of interesting, too, at least in her looks -- on camera, anyway. In person, she's kind of furtive.

Shrinkage

With Halloween's imminent approach, the candy aisles overflow with chocolate. And that's swell, although I have to say that the "Fun Size" isn't so fun, anymore. They keep making them smaller. I just ate a fun size Mounds that was all of .6 of an ounce. I bet in the 70s, a fun sized Mounds was likely far bigger. I hate that. So, eating two of them, I end up eating 1.2 ounces of Mounds. I might as well go shoe-shopping afterwards. Sheesh.

Work's insane as ever. Annoying Bizarroworld, extra-annoying and mentally ill coworkers, and me just wanting to be gone from there, trying to keep my head down for when the bullets start flying. I have a couple of job-lead nibbles, but refuse to get my hopes up just yet, lest I jinx'em.

I watched "Beauty & the Geek" last night, again. I hate that they call the geeks "geeks" -- that bugs me. But it was still amusing. Spell "Intelligence" -- I loved how slowly and carefully the mimbo spelled that. The makeovers were amusing, too. Now they all look like hipsters, with varying degrees of success. The pretty boy did the best in the makeovers; hopefully he'll keep that look going, and should be up to his armpits in babes after this show's over.

I can't believe it's only Wednesday. Today should really be Thursday, shouldn't it? Lordy.

Something I stumbled on over the weekend, on one of the lame weekend shows, they had people sum up their week in three words, which led to a treaclefest. But I liked that concept, and will likely do that for kicks.

Last week: Sick of it!!

Music: Big Black, "He's a Whore" (perfect tune for the moment)

Weekender

I find Monday's the best time to recount the weekend, since it's best to do so on company time, versus on home time. Not that there's terribly much to recount. Going backwards in time, let's see...

Sent out some rezzies, as ever. We'll see what happens. We took the boys outside to watch the marathon (where we live, we can catch them at Mile 5 and then can walk up the street to catch Mile 11). That was fun -- I'm a good cheerer, cheered those sorry running bastards on. We managed to hotfoot it to the Mile 11 spot (intersection of Armitage and Sedgewick) and see the elite marathoners shoot by, and waited there awhile (maybe 45 minutes) and watched some of the folks we cheered at Mile 5 make their way sweatily past us. Some of them were looking pretty worn out by then, ready to drop. The humidity took its toll, for sure. Then we went back to our apartment and watched the great finishes for the elite runners. I felt bad for Adriana Prieta, the Romanian who was coasting to a first-time marathon victory, only to have it snatched from her in the last minute by a sprinting Ethiopian champ. That was pretty amazing -- Prieta made a classic blunder: ending the race before crossing the finish line. Live and learn, I guess? She had an amazingly light stride for somebody running so damned far.

Spousette's definitely wanting to run a marathon at some point, but I told her no way am I doing it; I'd happily cheer her from the sidelines, but I only run when chased. The boys and I would cheer her on, but that's her particular mountain to climb, not mine!

We also went out and wore the boys out with some soccer and walking around the neighborhood; the boys enjoyed playing in the fountains in the kiddie part of the Zoo, which was cute. Although B2 was drawn to try to pick up cobbles and throw'em. He loves grabbing rocks and chucking'em. What else? Oh, speaking of soccer, B1's team won again, so they're 3 and 2, which is nice. Once again, B1 is hopeless at soccer, compared to three of his teammates (he's about equivalent to the remaining teammate). But he's young, is still learning.

Athletically, he's certainly capable of playing, but he's not aggressive or competitive enough to get much play time, and kind of loses his focus during play, although he seems to enjoy himself, and that's good. I thought he'd enjoy soccer for all of the running, but he just kind of goes off into his own world, although, as I said, he seems to have fun. The season is an amazingly long 18 games, so there's still a lot of time to learn and develop his skills.

One amusing thing -- as we finished, he said "did my team win?" and I told him they did, and he was happy, wanted to go to the playground nearby (which was all wet from the rain). I didn't really want to, wanted to get the boys back home, but we went over there, and I saw an honest-to-goodness (or badness) clown on a bicycle, riding around in there, like for some kid's birthday party, or something. I said "Hey, there's a clown in there." and B1's like "What?" and he looks, and says "Oooh, I don't want to go to the playground, now." And I said "Are you sure?" and he's like "Yeah. Let's get out of here!" so we went home, after all. For once, I was almost glad to see a goddamned clown.

We Peapodded our groceries on Friday, which left a lot of the weekend, open, thankfully. Spousette's labs started Saturday, so I drove her up there and played Soccer Dad for the game. I'll actually have to do that for the remainder of the fall season, and probably for spring, too. I just put B2 in our baby backpack, carry him the way, keep him out of trouble -- I let him run around and wear himself out while B1's practicing, and then backpack him for the game, so I can watch B1 play.

One thing we got from Peapod is this great full-fat mozzarella cheese. It's soooo good! First time we had it, we didn't realize it was full-fat, and were like "Damn, this cheese is great!" and then we saw it was full-fat. Yummers.

I was disappointed to hear the Cubs blow it on AM radio. They totally imploded.

Luau

Poor Spousette and B1 have colds. So far, B2 and I are spared. I'm in a better mood today than I've been in a number of days, mostly because I wrote 1500 words of fiction yesterday; I hadn't written f*ck since visiting my folks. Writing always makes me feel better, like I'm getting something done. Never mind that it's a rewrite; it's still writing.

Today's busy, but not as insanely busy as yesterday. It's also very quiet. Maybe a little TOO quiet...hmmm.

Tomorrow is only a day away

Tomorrow's gonna be a crazy day, Poppets.

First, we get to meet Herr Direktor in the morning, and we're encouraged to show up (no doubt to create the illusion that we're not a Potemkin Department -- they should've given us cardboard cutouts of people to bring to fill out the ranks -- hell, some of those cutouts would be better editors than some of my coworkers).

Then, around 12:30 I'm going to a bar near Bizarroworld with Cookie, Crabcakes, and Miss Manners -- the first two wanted to snag a beer to herald the end of summer, so I was like "Awrighty!" We'll see what kind of scoopage, if any, I can get from C&C. Always good to know Production folks.

And THEN, around 5:00 and 5:30, the Lunch Bunch (or most of it, members-in-good-standing) will be gathering at another bar/restaurant for some socializing. It should be Homegrrl, Shallot, the Plebe, and me -- possibility that Leona may turn up for a drink-and-run, but we'll see if she does.

Anyway, it's going to be a busy day. And Wankmaster is turning up around 10:30 for a meeting with Leona and Cherry and others -- that SOB (haha) better not show up at the 12:30 outing, but I figure he won't. If he does, I'll be like "Hey, Shitmonkey. I knew you'd be back."

Daddy's gonna be one busy fella tomorrow -- that's way more social than I usually am in one day, Heaven help me.

All is frustration

I'm utterly alone on the job. No allies, no friends in-house. Short-term, I'm making way more money than I was, them throwing it at me to keep my fingers in the dam. But I can go a whole day without talking to anybody, now. For an extrovert like me, that's soul-hurting. Sigh.

I teased Leona this morning, asking her if she'll go work at Skippy's new place, once he's ensconced there. She gave one of her usual guarded nonresponses; I could see her doing it, frankly. If she ended up there, I'd be unsurprised, just like if she and Skippy ever married (haha, but you know), I'd also be unsurprised.

There's just me, myself, and I. I'm the only one I trust here, now, in-house. That's not a pleasant place to be. I miss my buddies, my friends and allies, people I could rely on. Now it's just nutjobs, nancies, neurotics, and nabobs of negativity. No!!

I need something to cheer me up...



Ahhh, that's better. Barely.

Major "King" Kong

This is me, bronco-busting the Bomb... "Waaaahooooooo---* (I made it a clickable link to YouTube; how cool is that?)

I am Boxer

This is me versus Bizarroworld

Remember "Animal Farm" my lovelies? I'm Boxer -- except I don't have blind faith in the leadership (below, from Wikipedia)...

Boxer is a fictional horse from George Orwell's Animal Farm. He is the farm's most hard-working and loyal worker. He serves as an allegory for the Russian working class who helped oust the Czar and establish the Soviet Union, but were eventually betrayed by the Stalinist deformation of Marxism.

Boxer is one of the most popular characters. Boxer is the tragic avatar of the working class, or proletariat: loyal, kind, dedicated, and strong. By contrast, he is not very clever and seldom progresses beyond the fourth letter of the alphabet. His major flaw, however, is his blind trust in the leaders, and his inability to see corruption, leading to his manipulation and abuse by the pigs in more or less the same manner as he was by Jones. His two mottos, seen below, sum up the double side of his character.

He fights bravely in the Battle of the Cowshed and the Battle of the Windmill but is upset when he thinks he has killed a stable lad when, in fact, he had only stunned the poor boy. His death serves to show just how far the pigs are willing to go — when he collapses after overstraining himself, the pigs supposedly send him to a veterinarian, when in fact he was sent to the knacker's yard to be slaughtered and boiled out into glue, in exchange for money to buy a case of whiskey for the pigs. A strong and loyal draft horse, Boxer played a huge part in keeping the Farm together prior to his death.

Ironically, during Old Major's speech which inspired the principles of animalism a specific reference is made to how he would be turned into glue under Jones rule, thus implying that it would not happen to him under Animalism. This is possibly a further decline from animalism to Napoleon's government.

Boxer may have been inspired by Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, a miner in the Soviet Union who became a hero in 1935 for his great productivity, or the Soviet Stakhanovite movement named after him, which was aimed at increasing worker productivity. His name was possibly based upon the Boxer Uprising in China.

Ah, Animal Farm....

The Whole Enchilada

Music: "Take the Money and Run," Steve Miller Band

Well, that's it, then.

I got an end-of-day call-in from 3-D, with Tsarina lurking in a chair. I'm expected to do the whole deal, now that Splints is leaving. On the bright side, they're going to pay me extra per page for the additional work until the conversion occurs; on the dark side, there's NFW I can do it for long -- I told them as much, that all I could do was try, that I wasn't sure if it could actually be done. Supposedly it'll be for the next couple of months, as they continue to try to ramrod Red Tide through the works.

I told 3-D: "You know, I've always been the good soldier at this place, always tried to do the job efficiently, and I got things done, but I don't want to be forgotten when this work's finished, expected to fall on my sword as a reward for my hard work."

3-D acknowledged that in his typically dirtbaggy way, like without giving anything in return, of course. 3-D said this and that, but it was clear to me that they have no other option right now; I could've probably dicked them, but as I see it, I'm going to escape as soon as I can, and as soon as something better comes, I'm on it, and they can stuff it.

Meantime, there was also noise made that even as our workgroup (Tsunami and Tide) get assimilated by the New Order, I'd be moved to doing my current work to the Miscellaneous Group, doing what CHA used to do, since they're not planning any more conversions anytime soon, until they get our current group converted, and that they'd try to find me something afterward, didn't want me to leave, blah blah blah.

I didn't lose my temper or anything, just played it cool, will keep to my plan of getting the f*ck out of there as soon as I can, regardless. I told 3-D that I had been greatly disappointed when I'd gotten passed up for [managerial spot] after having done my job well, being told that I was too valuable in my current position to be moved, and that I didn't want a repeat of that with this.

Supposedly I'll get final say on the work that I do, with Jungle not able to tweak things. But we'll see how that goes. I'm sure Jungle will hate that.

Short-term, it'll mean I'll make far more money than I'm currently making. It'll also mean a shitload more work -- I made it clear to 3-D and Tsarina that I truly doubted that it could be done, that I'd be juggling four plates from the end of canes, and that I doubted I'd be able to keep all four running on schedule.

I don't intend to work overtime; I'll just be Johnny Fucking Paycheck and get as much work done as I can during the day. I'm not going to get stressed about it, I'll just work and get my ass out of there. I'm so hardened, so jaded, all I thought about while this went on was "Great, more fodder for the resumé."

They probably think I'm an icecube, because I was nearly emotionless in the exchange, largely unfazed. It's because I have no respect for Bizarroworld, for 3-D, Tsarina, or their whole New Order plan.

My new thing

My way of getting through my day these days is lots of e-mail, web-surfing, YouTube, and daydreaming. I'm multi-shirking! Now, how is that different from my usual shirkage? I dunno -- I'm more readily able to blot out that I'm even here. Like I was doing some mental revisions of the fantasy book, working things out in my head, which occupied me even as my fingers flew on the work that I was doing. I guess I'm familiar enough with the work I do that I can do it on autopilot, which is nice, even as I'm looking for something elsewhere.

One annoying thing, however: one of the rooftop a/c units for our building (our half of it, of course) is on the blink, so it's been frickin' humid over here, and fairly warm. Not too pleasant. Glad I wore seersucker today, I guess.

I biked to work yesterday and this morning; the weather's been great for it. I can definitely tell I'm getting stronger and fitter from all the biking -- by week's end, I'll have biked nearly 360 miles in about five weeks! Woot!

Music: Joy Division, "Decades"

Time/Space Distortions

Tsarina dropped by, asked me how I was doing. I told her I was okay, commented how, with TB and Postal gone, all I had for company were some journals next door in an empty cubicle. She commented that when Leona was back, it'd be lots busier, and that this was simply the calm before the storm. But, she said "At least it'll make the day go faster." I rolled my eyes in disgust.

They're going to try to work me out of a job. I'm not going to get stressed. I'm not going to run faster on the hamster wheel. I'll get what I can get done, keep looking for work elsewhere, and that's that.

Tomorrow we have a transition meeting; we'll see if anything worthwhile comes of it. Odds are they'll talk about the jumpstarted transition plans, and what they intend with that. Lordy, let my liferaft float my way soon.

Music: The Last, "Every Summer Day"

Cherries Jubilee

I've been gorging on cherries lately. They've been so good! Apparently this year was a great year for cherries, and it shows -- they're so good at the farmer's markets, and I even managed to find some big, good ones at Treasure Island. I love cherries!

I didn't bike in today, took the bus instead, wanted to finish up the editing of the fantasy book; I've got like 20 pages left on it (I still have to input all my editing marks; it never ends!) Still, so glad that the end is in sight.

Part of my brain was like "Dude, you should write some new short stories." But the other part is like "Don't go there, man. Get this scutwork done." I'm being disciplined and sticking to it.

Crabcakes printed out a color picture of a crown that said "Behold the King of Nicknames." She's amused at my ability/compulsion to nickname absolutely anybody. It just happens. I have like my nice nicknames for people that I like, and my snarky nicknames for people I don't (like Baron Von Shitforbrains -- that's not one I've used, but I'm sorely tempted).

View from the hill

I had an interview yesterday, although I'm too shellshocked (I should call it "jobshocked") to make any predictions or dare to have any hopes. I think it went well, but it was a preliminary kind of interview. We'll see what, if anything, comes of it. I'm thinking since I'll be out of town the second week in August, I'm figuring it'll have gone well, and I'll get a call from the place when I'm out of town. That'd be tops! I'm busy trying to figure out Bizarroworld's Byzantine voicemail system, so I can have that working for me when I'm out of town, like letting me check messages, if any, remotely.

Ideally, I won't have to -- the sods have about two weeks to contact me, so if anything good is coming my way (e.g., more interview hoops to jump through), I should hear by then.

Musical interlude (bad sound, but great video)...

Dude, I'm screwed!

Tsarina dropped the bomb on me yesterday, though in a weirdly indirect manner, owing to miscommunication. Anyway, instead of doing the job of two people, I'll be doing the job of three people, once Splints leaves Bizarroworld. They keep ratcheting it up, seeing how much I can take until I break. Hopefully I can get something lined up before I have to do too much of this; Splints leaves in early August, so the heat is on. But the list of infamy grows...

1. Passed over for a managerial promotion
2. Junior person made my boss
3. My position is to be eventually eliminated
4. I'm given more work than I can possibly do
5. Another effective demotion is imminent as I take on the additional workload, since the junior person I'll be working with will think of it more like I'm working for her
   

I think there are some things I'm forgetting in this, some other insults to what pride I have left. Man, I wish I could jump back into time and tell them to blow it out their ass when they offered me my current position. I remember telling Folding Chair when it was offered to me, "You know, this will be like a qualitative demotion." and she said "Oh, I do not think anybody will see it that way." But in practice, that is exactly how it turned out. Fool that I was in 2002, I thought my hard work would be rewarded. In my next job, I think, just to mix things up a little, I will try to be as nearly useless as possible, so I can run the company in a few years.

I'm still ironclad until the hammer falls, but I really don't know how I'm going to do this.

Ride on

Great morning for biking -- sunny, lovely churning lake, puffy white clouds, cool air (and a nice feisty tailwind, for once, which zipped me to work quickly).

I finished my week's iTunes project, getting nearly everything back up on my work system that I'd lost, and then some. I'm now at 4,618 tunes. So much better. I kind of hate iTunes; it's kind of a psychotic jukebox. I don't know why it does what it does sometimes, but I know I'm not going to update it again, because it'll just dump all those songs I've worked to add, because they're .mp4s or .aacs or whatever.

I've got a pile of work to get through today, will try to get it all done, be John J. Workenheimer today.

Stormy Weathers

The sky looks pink this morning; it's all very overcast, but with the sun coming up (somewhere), it's making it look pink, almost periwinkle, or something.

Wow, was that ever a load of stormage last night. It was like a strobelight (or strobe light? Hmm) outside our window, and yet, I managed to sleep. I think I can sleep through almost anything.

3-D is out all week; I'm so glad for that. I hate his George Costanzian presence. His very existence offends me.

I kind of can't believe it's Thursday already. The week has managed to drag and pass quickly at the same time, some kind of temporal warp or something.

My project for the week has been reloading the lost music on my iTunes (I'd bitched about that before, elsewhere, so no need to rehash it -- suffice to say my work iTunes lost about 1,500 songs, maybe more). So, I've been busy bringing files to work in bundles; I've added about 700 since Monday, and after today, should have about 900 restored. By the time I'm done, I should have around 5,000 or more songs on at work. Yes, you can see where my priorities are on the job!

I've made good social inroads with Crabcakes, one of the production people (the other Em, the one who wasn't Snausage, Homegrrl) -- she's the one nice and/or decent person in that group. I always think it's useful know one production person, since they get scoop more often than we do. She's commented about how crazy Bizarroworld is, how nobody talks, how much that sucks. I feel her pain; everybody goes through that reaction when they join the madhouse.

I'm perennially amused that the Raj gave us luggage tags with the Bizarroworld logo on it as some kind of bonus. It's like "Hmmm, are we...uh...going someplace?" Yeah, out the f*cking door!

So, I'm about 3/4 of the way through the fantasy novel, copy editing it. I hope the fucking editors who eventually (hopefully) get this book appreciate all the front-end editing I've done on it. I'm sure some BVHD asshats will scoff at it, like "Ahuh, well, this section's a little weak, we need more plu perfect tense!" but I edited the bejeezus out of this book. After the edits are done, I'm going through it ONE LAST GODDAMNED TIME to add sparkle, as I put it -- a final coat of sparkle and then varnish. The sparkle will be just adding to description and such, where needed.

The glow is gone, the sky is cloudy-blue again. I guess that rosy glow was the sun rising behind the clouds. Neat.

Anyway, it'll be fully and finally done; once we're back from the trip to California, then the pimp-a-palooza begins, with me crafting the all-important query letter, and trying to get somebody to take this book. I can see it now: "It's like Beowulf meets A Game of Thrones!"

Toenail RIP

Lost the rest of that pesky toenail yesterday; snagged it on a box, hurt like hell, and I clipped it to the nubbins, peroxided it and added some Neosporin to it and a band-aid. It's much better now. Stupid nail! My toestub count since 7/12 stands at 3.

Weekend went way too quickly, but we went to a fun party yesterday. A luau (sic) for one of Spousette's friends, who's moving to Hawaii for a year for an academic program. Cool stuff! We may visit her next year, if save up for it (and, ideally, I'll have another job by then, yes? Sheesh).

Anyway, it was fun. The boys enjoyed themselves greatly. B2 is shaping up to be a party animal, but that's something I already knew. I did a few shots of some kickass tequila, using a tiki shotglass necklace that I'd been given. Nice!

What else? I drove in to work today, because it's supposedly gonna storm this afternoon, and I had to get home in good time because Spousette's got a doctor's appointment, the final follow-up on her lasik eye surgery, which went without incident, and turned out to be a great thing for her, no muss, no fuss. I'd never do it, though. No way!

Looks like 3-D might be out this week. That'd be great, if so. I thought I'd overheard him saying he'll be out this week, but I didn't want to get my hopes up. So far, though, so good.

Good morning

I biked in this morning; it was idyllic -- the sun over the lake, the lake lightly churning waves, looking like the ocean. The Great Lakes are truly inland seas -- stupid European who named them "Lakes" missed it by a mile. Or else they were being snide or something, or perhaps thought nobody would believe them if they said they were seas. Imagine how full of fish they had to have been, what a wonderland the New World had to have been -- it's like Christians returned to Paradise, but didn't recognize it when they saw it, and turned it to Hell, instead. Certainly, looking at the industrial wasteland that is East Chicago and Gary can only make one long for the dunes and woods that once hugged those shores, and the paucity of life in Lake Michigan pales before what was once there.

So, TB is now gone; I knew I'd be screwed over when they did the office move-around, that she'd get that corner spot, would flee, and then it would be less likely for a piker like me to get that spot. I can just see Tsarina (aka, Cherry) listening to me make my pitch for it and saying "Well, we just made the move a few weeks ago; seems kinda soon to move again, doesn't it?" Mmm, yeah.

Nearly done with the six pounds of sweet Italian sausage I bought last Friday at Costco. If I finish it by tomorrow, I'll have eaten about a pound of meat a day! Woot! Another life experience I can check off my list, I guess! When I told Leona, she was envious.

I saw that Pope Benedict invalidated the other denominations of Christianity, saying that the Catholic Church was the only official one. Yeah, yeah. A little late for the Counter-Counter-Reformation, isn't it, Benny?

Speaking of reformation, isn't it time somebody tried to impeach Bush and Cheney? C'mon, people. Lordy.

200 miles biked by the end of today.