August 24, 2007

Because I couldn't seem to motivate myself this week, I get to take work home this weekend. It like totally blows chunks, Heather, that I have to spend time working at home. On the positive side, it's something I actually enjoy doing.

Granted, I probably don't have to this. However, I want to be able to surprise the bossman when he gets back from vacation on Monday with a fully completed project. So while you're all out there enjoying the 110 degree weather (what's up with that anyway? From 75 to 110 in 2 days?!) think of me sitting at home building a website from the ground up. And cursing at my laptop because I can't get the HTML or Javascript to work the way I want.

August 22, 2007

Tagged and Bagged

Pisco has tagged me. The mission, should I choose to accept it is to list the joys and trials of my belief system. I don't really have a cohesive belief system; it's actually more of a nebulous intersection of many ideas that I've run across in my life. I was raised as a Methodist, gave that up and have since explored ideas from New Age religions, Paganism, and religious philosophers like Eliade and Freud. (Yes, Freud did write at least 1 book on the nature of religion.) In sum, I'd qualify myself as an Optimistic New Age Agnostic (with Atheistic leanings).

Rules
1. You have to use your own belief system for the meme. No fair using someone else’s to make a joke or satire. Being humorous about your own religion is encouraged!

2. You have to have at least one joy and one trial. More are encouraged. And no, they don’t have to be equal in length, but please be honest.

3. You have to tag at least one other person. More are appreciated!

4. Please post these rules!

Joys
1. I can be as much of a magpie as I want. Any idea/belief that I come across that dovetails nicely with my belief system can be incorporated and adopted.

2. My beliefs are constantly evolving. I don't feel tied to any particular belief, because I know that at any given moment I could be proved wrong, or find a new way of understanding something.

3. Each person is divine. We all have the spark of the Infinite within us.

4. No monolithic organization telling me what to think/do/act breathing down my back.

5. Rejection of the idea that humans are inherently flawed and sinful beings and should spend their whole lives atoning for this. I'm not perfect, but I strive to be the best person I can be. If I make a mistake, I learn from it and move on.

6. Karma.

Trials

1. Not having anyone else who shares my exact belief system. I do miss the sense of community from my Methodist days.

2. Having to explain the difference between agnosticism and atheism. For some reason people think the 2 words are equivalent.

3. Tolerating people's disbelief and ridicule when I state I believe in ideas like karma, reincarnation. Also having to convince them that I'm perfectly happy not being a hard-core Christian/Muslim/Jew/whatever.

4. What if I'm wrong? I like to think that if there's a God s/he'll be forgiving of my skepticism and realize that I've strived to be the best person I could be. But there's that old-school Old Testament indoctrinization in the back of my head that goes off and says "what if God really is that vengeful."

5. Karma.

I'm tagging the Scorpio(s) to play this game.

August 21, 2007

Monster

Have you seen the latest satellite images of Hurricane Dean? That thing is gigantic! I'm don't know the exact measurements of the Yucatan (and I'm too lazy to go look them up). I can say that I've lived in the Yucatan. I know firsthand that it takes a LONG time to drive from Merida to Cancun -- about 7 hours at roughly 60 mph. My point being that the Yucatan is big. And Hurricane Dean is more than covering the entire landmass of the Yucatan. This storm is going to tear that place up.

Fashion Faux Pas

I spent most of my weekend hanging out with my friend Joy. (Except for Sunday when I retrieved the Majordomo from the airport. He was kind of whiny, but we can't hold that against him because he did have a very long week. And a long flight.)

Anywho, Joy and I found ourselves at the DSW, which probably wasn't too smart of an idea, because we both have little self-control when it comes to shoe shopping. I didn't spend too much and I walked out with 2 pairs of shoes. Later in the evening, I took a pair of the shoes out and I noticed that the leather where the eyelets for the shoelaces are were 2 different colors. Closer examination revealed they were also 2 different leathers: suede and hard leather.

I went back to DSW the next day to exchange the shoes for a matching pair. The cashier was very pleasant and let me do the exchange no problems. The interesting part of the experience happened when the cashier called her manager over to ask what should be done with the mismatched shoes.

Manager: Oh, this is really just a fashion thing. Put them back out on the shelf.
Me: [staring incredulously at manager] Are you kidding? Those are 2 different shoes!! There's 2 different types of leather on those shoes -- one's suede and the other's dark leather.
Manager: I was just kidding, couldn't you tell?
Me: No.
Manager: Well I can see why this would bother you. Maybe after a few drinks out on the town you'd look down at your shoes and be all like 'hey, these don't match.'

At this point I just stopped talking to her altogether. The exchange finished, I walked out of the store. I get that she was trying to be funny after a what we'll generously call a failed joke. And I wasn't drunk when I noticed the problem, nor had I worn the shoes at all. You can bet from now on I'll thoroughly examine shoes from now on. Because you know the minute I left the store, the manager put those shoes back out on the shelf.

August 15, 2007

Double Swirl Fun

I was seriously beginning to think that my edutainment was going to suffer this year. But then out of nowhere, the Atlantic kicked it into high gear. We've currently got Tropical Storm Dean (soon to be Hurricane Dean) playing out near some islands. It may even make landfall in the States. Then as a bonus, out of nowhere, Tropical Strom Erin just popped up in the Gulf of Mexico. Apparently, Erin's aiming to take out parts of Texas.

I was making due with the antics of Hurricane Flossie -- who has been downgraded, but is still intent on causing some damage to Hawaii. It's just not the same when they're over there in the Pacific. I like my storms to be from the cold, nasty waters of the Atlantic. And now there's 2! Hooray for edutainment!!

Oh, and why is it that any time the media reports on a hurricane said hurricane is 'swirling' towards something? They always 'swirl,' although sometimes they do 'churn.' I think someone needs to send the AP a thesaurus.

August 14, 2007

They're coming

I know I promised a few weeks back, that I'd post some pictures of the fur-childrens' slumber party. I was actually going to do it this week. That was until the Major galivanted off to Europe and the Middle East with the camera. (Did I mention I'm a lazy punk and I hadn't offloaded any of the pictures yet?) If it's any consolation, the Major hied off with the camera without taking the charger. And he discovered the battery is pretty much dead. So be patient my little treats, and I'll post pictures of the demonspawn when the camera gets back.

xoxo

The All-Spark's A Dud

The Transformers movie was half a hot mess. I finally got around to seeing it this past weekend with a friend. We laughed at the 'Satan's Camaro is chasing me' line. There were a number of other really funny lines. Parts of the movie really worked well and were very entertaining.

But somewhere, somehow, the whole movie just fell apart. It wasn't until the credits were rolling that I realized that the movie was much less than met the eye. It wasn't quite blowbots in disguise, but it comes awfully close. I can't quite pin down what went wrong. I do know I didn't like any of the robot models, and the CGI was a whole hot mess. That's not to say the CGI was poorly done. It wasn't. It was poorly executed. When any of the transformers transform, you're left staring at the screen having no clue what you just witnessed. Is that a robot arm? Maybe it's a robot leg? Robot heart? Hole should have wrote a song for this. And I'm seriously annoyed that Bumblebee's head and torso look more like Johnny-5 than a supercool Camaro.

I had such high hopes for this movie. The Transformers were one of my favorite cartoons when I was a kid. I had many of the action figures. (I loved the ones that you combined to form a bigger, badder robot.) I left the theater somewhat disappointed, because it had the potential to be better than it was. I think it would have been easier leave outright hating the movie.

PS. Jon Voigt looks like a bag of moldy suet in the movie. Who left his face out in the rain and let it get all melty?

Disaster Planning

Without getting into all the boring details, someone’s been acting like a spoiled princess at work. It’s run the gamut from making assumptions, to failing to specify exact details, to miscalculating dates, and ending with a series of spiteful e-mails. The net result has been an exceptionally crappy start of the week for me.

I’ve already had to bring the smack down twice. And that’s never pretty. Especially when all I need to do is outline the facts, and someone ends up looking like a total idiot. I’d be inclined to be gentler if someone hadn’t cc-ed half the company on the crazy. Here’s to hoping tomorrow’s quieter, because I’d actually like to get some work done this week.

August 9, 2007

Because I'm Shameless ...

... I ganked this from Pisco.

And your Harry Potter Alter-Ego Is?
You scored as Remus Lupin, You are a wise and caring wizard and a good, loyal friend to boot. However sometimes in an effort to be liked by others you can let things slide by, which ordinarily you would protest about.

Hermione Granger

80%

Sirius Black

80%

Remus Lupin

80%

Harry Potter

70%

Albus Dumbledore

70%

Ginny Weasley

65%

Ron Weasley

60%

Severus Snape

60%

Draco Malfoy

50%

Lord Voldemort

10%

Your Harry Potter Alter Ego Is...?
created with QuizFarm.com

Call for Cards

My friend Princess Hot Muffin is having a very bad week. A very bad last 2 weeks, to be more exact. Her Hot Muffinness was supposed to come up and hang out with AJ, but she called to let me know she wasn’t feeling well. Mz. Muffin went to the doctor and came back home the proud owner of (1) a vicious sinus infection and (2) a rockin’ case of pink eye.

Apparently, this wasn’t enough for our Royal Muffin. In a bizarre mouth-burning incident (that may or may not have involved hot pizza), a third friend has invited itself to the party – Shingles. So, everyone should send Princess Hot Muffin their love and well-wishes for a speedy recovery.

PS. I would have mentioned that Mme. Muffin was helping me steam clean my carpet, but then this whole post would have came across as some type of coded lesbian porno.

August 6, 2007

And Yet I Still Live

Last week was heinous. By the time Saturday afternoon rolled around, I had worked 56 hours. I'm still not in any condition to physically handle that much work, so I was combating physical exhaustion all last week. Predictably, I got a good nap in Saturday afternoon and slept pretty much all day on Sunday.

For the most part, last week's meeting was a success, and there was very litte friction amongst the participants. On the other hand, I had huge handfuls of nasty dumped in my lap while I was trying to make sure the logistics for this meeting came off without a glitch. There is only one real job function I have that I truly hate, and the powers-that-be decided that I would be spending the better part of last week doing that.

On top of having a bunch of people in the office and dealing with the Task-I-Hate-More-Than-Anything, I was informed that my timesheets have been reviewed back to my start date in 2002 to get an accurate picture of how much vacation/sick time I have or don't have. This is apparently what the company does when one has to take leave due to a serious illness and/or surgery. It's going to be a hot mess, and I'm less than pleased about it.

Anyway, that's where I was last week. This week isn't looking too much better. Something about an arbitrary deadline being moved to the end of the week.