Slip of the tongue? Or a deliberate hint?

Yesterday during our vendor meeting, our controller introduced me to the vendor as the Senior Accounts Payable Specialist. My title in my current position is, in fact, just plain old Accounts Payable Specialist. I do know that our thick-as-a-plank Accounts Payable Supervisor will be demoted to Accounts Payable Specialist when I move up to my Staff Accountant position, and I suspect that my replacement will be titled Senior Accounts Payable Specialist. Our controller, however, is not given to accidentally letting things slip, so I'm wondering if that was a subtle, deliberate hint at what is to come in this department.

Speaking of which, they have yet to find a replacement for me. Argh. Argh, I say! I want my new job now! Actually, I have my new job now, and I am trying to keep up with both jobs. I want out of my old job now so that I can focus on my new job, but Thick-as-a-plank over there wouldn't be able to do any of this desk's work, so I 'm currently stuck.

Argh again.

No, I don't ride the short bus.

Ever have one of those days where you wake up feeling well rested, you have a good hair day, your clothes fit, you go to work and have a reasonable time of it, the commute doesn't suck totally, and then you get home at the end of the day and you find that in the 10 hours you were out of your house, a new, gigantic white pimple came up and you didn't even feel it? Do you find yourself realizing that was that was the reason that your cow-orker's eyes kept slipping down to your chin while they spoke to you? That the look in their eyes wasn't stress from work, but from wanting to escape the hideousness erupting on your face? That the people who like you did their best not to look at it because they didn't want to embarass you, but the people who don't like you didn't want to give it away and spoil the fun?

Yeah, me too. That was yesterday.

Today, I managed to draw all over my white shirt with a red pen without noticing, and I have a meeting with a vendor this afternoon. I can see it now... "No, ma'am, I'm not retarded, I am just shockingly unaware of what my hands are doing when I'm not looking at them as they hold an uncapped red marker and apparently flail around wildly." It's going to be great. Maybe I should take a Chonga Bagel into the meeting with me so that I can get poppy seeds stuck in my teeth and cream cheese on my lips and under my nails and grease on the table top to complete the first impression.

Torchlight

Last weekend I went over to Ken and Brad's new place, bearing proudly the chocolate cheesecake before me, which I laid down my Saturday morning to bake. We hung around and waited for Max and Michelle to show up, then barbecued the heck out of some stuff. We headed down to the Torchlight Parade and found a great spot on the balcony of the new and yet unfinished City Hall. It was a great view, up from the crowds. I managed to finally break my $500 camera, so I'm a bit hacked off. I think I may now have a reason to break down and buy a C-8080 or a D-70, both of which I've been slobbering over for some time now. The parade was fun, and we headed back to Ken's for drinks. He has the best home bar I've ever seen, and I took serious advantage of it. The guest room is great, easily as nice as some B&Bs I've seen. Private bath, veranda with teak furniture, comfy bed, and so on. I woke up around 8, showered and headed upstairs for a breakfast of blueberry pancakes and apple crisp before heading home to mow my lawn and do home work. Woo hoo!

And that was my Seafair weekend.

Work has been interesting... or something. I'm trying to get all of my process documentation in order for my replacement while trying to learn a new job and keep up with the old one. In updating all of the information, I'm finding that there is a huge amount of work to teach our new victim, and it is going to be a minor nightmare for the unlucky soul. Oh well. It will pay their bills. They're just fortunate they won't have to answer to the slack-jawed yokel currently in charge. On the other hand, they'll probably have to babysit her like I have been for four and a half years. (Don't get me wrong - she isn't inbred white hillbilly trash. She's just... kinda glazed over if you use words over a fourth-grade level.)

I've discovered two new bands. Well, they're new to me. Embrace and The Arcade Fire. Oh, and British Sea Power. And Super Furry Animals! That's more than two. Get over it. And Anna Nalick! Sorry, they just keep coming to me.

It just gets better and better.

Not only do I get a massive promotion and a raise, and I get to have a decent manager that I can respect and learn from, but my current "boss" is getting demoted!

She seems to think that she has grounds for a discrimination lawsuit, but that's just laughable. If anything, she's been getting preferential treatment because nobody wants to offend her or make her cry by telling her she needs to do a better job.

Now that she's forced to learn my job, they're finding out just how little she does and how little she's capable of. They are reducing her position to that of a second AP specialist. They are also going to redistribute the work load so that it is more even between the two positions, which is going to either force her to learn something, or quit, or be fired.

I can't wait to see how this plays out. Am I just mean, or is it justified to want to see someone made miserable when they get their comeuppance?

Color me pleased with myself.

I have a new job! I have a new job! I have a new job! I have a new job! I have a new job! (Insert happy dance here.)

I am moving from an Accounts Payable Specialist job to a Senior Accountant job. I knew an education would pay off sooner or later. And I don't even have the degree yet!

Boy, if I felt overwhelmed before, I'm in for it now...

So, have you finished reading "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" yet?

Let me just say this. I am not going to kill myself like that one guy did(n't) when he found out who killed whom.

That's all I'm saying... at the moment.

Oh, and this.

AAAAAAAUGH!!! THAT BASTARD!

That's all.

African Grey Parrots

Some birds can do a pretty reasonable job of imitation, but this one is one of the best I've seen.

Alex is still the best.

I've moved into the 21st century!

No more dialup! Woo hoo! I downloaded both of the text books for my next class in less than 2 minutes! I have broadband! I have broadband! I have broadband!

Now I must celebrate by downloading things I could never download before. I have many software updates on my agenda.

And some mp3s are out there with my name on them...

I'd just be the frogman of your life.

I am having a really slow day at work, so thankfully a friend sent me a link to a great website that has misheard lyrics on it, such as the following gem from Elton John's song "Your Song."

Misheard Lyrics:
You've got a real hairy body
And a great big s******
You may have a wide pimpled butt
But it turns me on.

Correct Lyrics:
And you can tell everybody
That this is your song
It may be quite simple but
Now that it's gone.

I've been amusing myself off and on all day with this. I have to keep lying about what I'm laughing at.

You, too, can be a victim if you only try hard enough!

My "supervisor" came in today, absolutely breathless to tell her co-workers about the latest tragedy in her life.

Just for clarity, I must add that she has no tragedy in her life. She's only happy when she has something to complain about. It is all about her family's problems. Her nearly blind dying mother. Her crackhead son. Her Omarosa-like sister in a marriage of money. Her promiscuous artist sister. Her sex-addicted son that likes abuse from women. Her crackhead son's dirt-stupid drugged-up girlfriend. Her crackhead son's latest illegitimate child and the abuse she suffers at the hands of her parents. Take your pick. I only feel free to mention these people's personal problems because the "supervisor" broadcasts them around the office with impunity, so no harm done.

So this is her latest tragedy. Apparently there was nothing happening on the family front, so she had to find another way to portray herself as a victim. She was on the way home from work yesterday and there was a fatality traffic accident that kept her from getting to her hair appointment. So sad.

Fatality traffic accident. Hair appointment.

You know, even in my head, I can't keep the sneer out of my voice when I re-read that.

And so he says to me, you got legs, baby, you're everywhere…you're all over the place! Yeah!

I’m wondering if it is just my imagination that I keep ending up dealing with smelly or otherwise tremendously annoying people on the train. Almost every day, I end up in a booth with one of them. I get to the train fairly early so that I can relax and read and get a good seat. Almost every day, one of them sits in my booth instead of, say, one of the 12 empty booths near me. I seem to have some kind of freak magnetism.

Yesterday I had a fat, smelly, sweaty, coughing, eating guy with headphones turned up loud enough for everyone. He was huffing from the four stairs he had to climb to get on the train, so I had to listen to him breathing for 40 minutes from 6 feet away over the noise of the train. Even worse, his breathing sounded like snoring, but I know he was awake. Every three and a half minutes he would cough – one loud, sharp cough that actually hurt my ears. He ate something that left greasy fingerprints all over the table and crumbs on his messily unshaven face. (Men, if you insist on maintaining the stubble look, keep it neat.) He kept picking up his backpack, rummaging through it, taking out a water bottle, drinking, then putting it away, and then doing it again. He must have done this eight times instead of just leaving the bottle out where he could get it.

This isn’t the first time, either. I seem to get one or two a week, especially on the evening train. I figure that if they can afford the $4.00 trip, they should be able to afford to shower and wash their clothes regularly enough to be inoffensive. There’s a guy on the morning train that never changes his clothes. You can smell him before you see him. He always gets to sit alone. I wonder if that is the intention…

Then there's the total psycho. He sits in one of the end booths with his back to everyone and if anyone coughs or sneezes, he turns around and glares at them repeatedly. After a few times, he starts making comments like, "Knock it off, you're just doing that for attention." He sits and plays with his little beeping watch the whole time, which is really annoying, and he has it set so that the alarm goes off just before the Kent stop. He's always clutching a bag or breifcase-like-thingie to his chest. His glasses are huge and thick and come down to his cheekbones. He reminds me of the Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight!

When I am on the train, I do not make any noise, I do not touch anyone, I do not make anyone smell me. I try to be invisible just out of courtesy to others. I know they don’t want to be bothered with me any more than I want to be bothered with them. Are some people so desperate for contact with others that they will annoy strangers just to draw attention to them?

And speaking of drawing the attention of strangers, here I am with a blog… Hello, pot? This is the kettle. You’re black!

The need for speed.

You can't tell, but I'm doing a happy dance.

I'm getting broadband this week! Broadband! Broadband! Broadband! Excuse me while I squeal like a little girl.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

My basic excuse for this extravagant expenditure is that I need it for school. It is painful to download 12mb annual reports with a 56K modem. It makes me cry when I have to download 100 newsgroup messages. I want to shoot myself in the head when I take online proficiency tests that I have to do over when my ISP boots me out just as I submit my final answers. I may be able to cut down my homework/school time by 8 hours a week with faster downloads/uploads.

And then there's the streaming capabilities... but that would be playtime. I have no time for that... No, really! Playtime is for non-undergraduate students. I wish I was a non-undergraduate student... There are so many things I would be able to do if I had time that I don't even know the possibilities. I could probably play Doom online, and stream music and videos, and shop on eBay...

Did I say that out loud?

But, hey, yeah, I'm thrilled that I can now get at my schoolwork in a minimum of time. That'll rock. Nothing makes life quite worth living like blazing fast downloads of college textbooks.

Life is full of surprises.

My sister is kind of the geanealogist of the family. This is a big shock to me, simply because I pictured her becoming something more like a groupie for AC/DC than a committed family historian. Anyway, in her searches, she has found that we are related to some very interesting people. One of our 7th great grandfathers was Sir Thomas Forster X. It gets more interesting from there, but I won't bore you with further details. Unfortunately, this won't do me any good, but it does give me a giggle to think of the histories of my ancestors.

I think I'll plant a white rose bush in my back yard...

I thought it was just me!

I constantly find myself behind drivers who are startled and baffled by virtually everything they encounter, as though they've never been outdoors before. They'll see, for example, a tree, and immediately they hit their brakes, as if they expect the tree to leap into the middle of the road. They also brake for mailboxes, buildings and their own rearview mirrors. But above all, they brake for the most disturbing and mysterious of all earthly phenomena, a green traffic light, which causes them to come to a virtual standstill, paralyzed, until the light turns yellow and then red, at which point they accelerate to 275 mph and shoot through the intersection, leaving me stuck at the light, shouting until spittle covers the dashboard.
-- from “Winning the big butt games” by Dave Barry (Column was originally published on Aug. 28, 1994)

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

They got Ralph Fiennes and Miranda Richardson for the next movie! Woo hoo!

Hello, Dalai!

Hey, its the Dalai Lama's 70th birthday!

You've got to check out the picture of the Tibetan Bagpipers... I am not making this up.

London

Maybe I'm stupid or naïve or ignorant, but it seems to me that people who bomb innocent commuters are not doing anything to further their own causes. All they do is make everyone hate them. Maybe that's what they want. Nothing else makes sense. Do they really think that anyone is going to have any sympathy for their cause after doing something like this? Why can't they just be civilized beings? Are we going to read the news reports about harmless little old English ladies with flowered hats splashed across the Underground and say to ourselves, "Gosh, I think we may be misunderstanding these poor gentlemen so profoundly that they feel the need to kill random, innocent citizens. Let's do whatever they want us to do"? As some wise person once said: puh-leeze. I think not. I'm guessing that the guilty parties are in for a world of hurt if they get caught. They certainly have it coming to them.

The reaping of the hay field.

My property finally looks like a lawn again! On Monday, my neighbor Dan stopped by with a brush cutter to brutalize my back yard into submission. Once that was finished, I whipped out my weed whacker and my newly repaired lawn mower and finished it off. My neighbors no longer glare in contempt as they pass my house. Now the trick is to maintain it while still getting everything else done. I have no idea how I'm going to manage that.

Mt. Mystery from Upper Royal Basin 

Mt. Deception from Upper Royal Basin