Welcome To The US, Ladies And Gentlemen

*sigh*

Wow

So things aren't going very well lately.

This last week has been hell on toast. I'm doing better than I thought I would be - I'm still standing - but it certainly doesn't feel like its working well.

I've slept three and a half hours in the last two days. Yesterday I downed a liter of mountain dew before lunch....today, well, it's 10 and i've already had two cans of mountain dew and three cups of highly caffinated, uber-strong coffee. Granted, i mixed hot chocolate into it with like 50 packets of sugar, because there's something about drinking an entire mug of what is, viably, badly brewed espresso before you've eaten that lacks appeal. I remember the days of 8 shots before lunch rush...it involved shaking and nausea...

To be honest, I haven't the slightest idea why i'm posting this...I think it was just for something else to occupy me for 5 minutes, or maybe just because i'm sad and kinda lonely, or maybe, just maybe, because i'm sleep deprived.

My grandfather went for testing yesterday on his potential liver cancer. My father was supposed to call and get his results last night, but he didn't. If he doesn't know when I get off of work, I guess i'll have to call and find out. Joy. There's something about asking your grandfather if he's dying that little can compare to on the level of horrible conversations you wish you never had to have, but such is life.

Work is okay. I've had a bit more to do in the past few days, so that's good...positive things are at least happening on that front, I just wish I didn't have to get up so damn early in the morning to do it. If god had intended me to be up at 5:30, he would've made it light out.

I got a christmas tree over the weekend - its adorable, and apparently extremely bright. I say there's nothing wrong with putting 750 lights on a 3 foot tall, artificial tree ;). There are those who's opinions differ. Decorating it was good, it gave me something to do, and I really do enjoy decorating the christmas tree when its my tree and i can have happy holday thoughts while i'm doing it. The shopping portion of Christmas is quickly approaching its demise, and that is fantastic. I still need to pick up Jameson's gift, although I think i'm ordering that online, and get something for Mike's portion of the family...and then there's Mike himself, who is uncooperative as usual.

I'm beginning to feel very near that nervous breakdown I talk about so often :P I suppose that's rather a bad thing. Dunno. I'm just snippy lately. Put me at work or at Mike's and i'm fine, not necisarally happy as pie, but its kind of a bad time of year for me, but force me to interact with any of my family members and all hell breaks loose. I don't think i'm entirely over the Thanksgiving Debacle yet, not last years Thanksgiving Debacle, that one will take a while to get over, but this years Thanksgiving Debacle involving fat reenforcements.

I'm done droning on and on now...god I need some sleep. When I wake up in the morning, consider this all null and void :P

Oh, on the good news front, Sarah and Martin got engaged (yay!) and the wedding is sometime in the spring (or so says the plan). Now for the scrounging for cash...plane tickets to London are pricey :)

Work

Okay, so this job of mine...

Wow...

You know my 30 second mystery job. Well, I got it, and I've had it, and to be honest, I haven't been doing it. Why, you ask? Because I had a sneaking suspicion that something was fishy about it...it just didn't seem right. And after I argued wtih the guy who trained me for a little bit today - turns out it wasn't right....

*sigh* Oh well, they did tack another 15 seconds onto my job though, so thats good :)

Yuck

Today is a day for yuck

I got up this morning and YUCK!
I got to work today and YUCK!
I opened the queue today and uber YUCK!
I sat here until noon and YUCK!
I want to go home, but no one will let me so YUCK!
I'm all emotional and thats yucky..

Mostly, I just don't want to sit here anymore and I thought you all shoudl know that so you could take loads and loads of pity on me, because you know you want to :) Yes you do, you want to pity me and my job where I sit here, overpaid for the minimal work I do...*beats head against the wall*

Everday I'm amazed at how boring this job is. Today, in the quintessential move of crappy things to do, I found on that they've ordered a "Thanksgiving Feast" for Tuesday...from Danny's. And they still haven't told me when I have the day off. I know we get friday but there's talk of working Thursday - which seems trippy, cuz its a holiday and all. *sigh* Somethings really just suck.

Oh-My-God

Ya know what I haven't heard in a long time. Flavor of the Week.

This is my reminder to figure out who's repsonsible for it and download it when i get home.

BAH!

Site down. Archive Corrupted. Week Old Database. So Many Subs. AH!

There is nothing so ugly as an irate teenager with low self-esteem.

Never Buy A Dell

So you all remember my tyrades and rants about dell? Right? Many of you said they were over the top, that I had the one lone horrible experience. I can just see it, hanging out in the vast deserts of middle america, chewing on a stem of grass, sitting around the campfire...cowboy hat...plate of pork and beans.

WRONG-O

Mike's mother has had her Dell (brand new desktop) for LESS THAN 24 HOURS and its already fucked up. And she didn't even touch it!

Work

Since I started here there has been this amazing task that I was supposed to start doing at some point that would give me something to do all day - so, you know, i'd have a job :P. I just got it.

Want to know what it is?

Every day I get about 6 packing slips from the guys in back. I have to enter the data off of them into the computer system. It takes about 30 seconds.

I'm pissed.

Back to the queue I go. Expect more entries in Tales From The Queue than I thought you'd be able to, because it looks like my days of 8 hours of validating are far from over.

Blogging

Maybe it's because i'm freaking out right now, or maybe its just because i've always been forgetfull, but I swear to you all that, until 30 seconds ago, I had something to blog about.

OH! I REMEMBER!

I never blogged about Max. Max is my hamster :) He's adorable. He's grey with a little white band around his belly and he's cute as can be. I think it's a he. I've decided its a he, in any case :) Anyway, I thought you should all know so that when I randomly started babbling about Max, you knew what I was talking about.

Oh, and Happy Belated MasterChiefmas. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves. All right, I know A-ron didn't, but he's a dork and we all knew that already. I did not have a good masterchiefmas, but that's just me and we all know my life is dedicated to pursuits of suckyness.

Reasons To Kill Other People's Employers

Okay, so as all of you might have noticed, my life sucks enough right now without stupid people getting in the way. Some idiot, hitherto known as Monty but to be referred to in the future as "that jackass," decided that it would be a great idea to not only mention to everyone Mike works with that he was at an interview yesterday, but to elaborate far enough to suggest that he be replaced within the company. Before you form any illusions about exactly how bad this pisses me off, let me just point out that this factoid managed to make its way into the supervisors meeting notes. Thats right, its in the damn minutes.

This pisses me off. Mike is having enough trouble with me, and then add that his job sucks...you really really don't need to tighten up the load by adding the sentiment that he may be bailing on them.

I want truffles. I want them now. I need them. I deserve them. Someone get me truffles before I kill you all. Coffee and Jamaican Rum, thank you. Why are you still sitting there like that? MOVE!

Melt Down: The Continum

To add to my previous list

- Great Grandmother's brother dying, drving her into a bout of depression the likes of my family has never seen before
- My dad's department is now three people understaffed as his only 2nd shift service manager just quit
- My brother is being expelled from school for not doing his homework. Don't ask how, but that trasnlates into me getting up at 5:30 every morning.

The psych ward sounds relaxing...

What's That Behind You

Thats the boredum. It's been following me around all day. I actually went through about 4000 stories and checked for image violations. I still have about 4500 left to go *beats head on desk* Something for the love of god! SO BORING...

My Day?

Want a brief overview

My grandfather is dying, contemplating suicide in fact
Work sucks
November sucks
Money sucks

And this, my friends, is why I sing the "I Hate My Life" song

Some Peoples Kids

And from here, I launch into a tyrade about individuals in this country, and all over the world really, and their attachment to the internet.

I had the misfortune of stumbling upon a site in April that seems to have sucked me in :P I make graphics, I post stories, I proofread (funny, huh? :P), I do coding, I moderate...I do all of these things with a smile and a nice thick layer of detachment.

About a month ago, a cute little idea was proposed about grouping members into teams and hosting little competitons. The group of us that run the place promptly put the keilbash an that - we have lives, familes, friends (we think anyway, its been a while since we were away from the computer for more than 10 minutes) and, peroidically, we like to spend time with them, not to mention do one of the other 10,000,000 things that can be done on the internet. It hasn't been discussed since, save a few people who beg us to do it and get ignored.

This morning, I log on, ya know, cuz i'm so busy here at work, and find that some idiot has claimed that this concept is his own (ignore the fact that I can cite about 100 other websites, many of which have been around and been doing this since this kid was in diapers). But, not only is it his idea, he wants the thread in which it was suggested removed and the member responsible for "stealing" it from him banned. Can anyone say rediculous? I can.

So I write him a polite response (polite in comparisson to the responses he got from a few other users...most of them involved garden tools and various body cavities). The overwhelming feeling that I got from this is one that i've been getting so frequently lately: the entire global population of individuals between the ages of 10 and 18 are not stable enough to use the internet.

These kids, and it is mostly kids, get so wrapped up in what is happening, so connected with other people, that they lose a grip on reality. The line between the internet and real life has been blurring for years, interfaces getting better, personal connections being forged, outreach to other members of the "global community," and all in all that has been a fantastic development, but the youth can't seem to find the line anymore. And what's really confusing is that the vast majority of them exist peacefully with one another, lying to eachother about who they are, trying on different faces, and knowing full well that everyone else they're speaking to is doing it too, but others can't seem to comprehend that the internet isn't accountible.

I'm of the "internet generation" I "played" in chatrooms as a kid, and I wasn't scarred by it, but at that time, the line wasn't so fuzzy. I'm starting to worry that we've either taken it too far, or that we've lost a grip on our kids. And naturally, the instinct there is to cite the studies that show what we've done to American children, but this isn't just America. It's india, britain, australia...it's all over the map covering so many social and political mores its not even funny, but nevertheless it seems that these people are sharing the exact same problem: They've gone mad.

I'll leave you all with this little gem.

"You should be responsible for keeping the law and the order in the forum.

"Would you like it if I stole your idea? I've been monitoring the forums, and I have reported the persons who stole the idea from me. As proffetionals I expect you will understand and satisfy my demands."

Things That Look Fun

Doesn't this just make you want to do it?

Shiney...

$$$$$

Income is a wonderful thing

Magor Melt Down

Major meltdowns are cathartic. Marissa was right :)

And a-ron can't type :P, but yes, that is an awesome graphic. Unfortunately, all i can take credit for is the red and blue.

For Mike

The rest of you can ignore this - i modded an image for him and I can't seem to get homtamil to uplaod it properly, so he'll just have to pick it up here.

Hi There Everybody

I got a computer!! Brand new, XP Pro...its lacking in office right now, and when they do give it to me it will be 97 (travesty, i know) but at least it will be a pc

I Forgot

I forgot to tell you guys...something...something important...Come on, Kay...you remembered it until you walked away to turn up your speakers....

I was getting up...I was turning on the audio book so I could go to bed...I was feeling special because my avatar got adopted by like three people in 10 minutes...and i dont remember anymore. Ah well...when i remember later, i'll tell you.

I Voted John Kerry

Yup, that's right. If Bush get's re-elected its still not my fault.

Jesus Christ, this is like a Militia meeting at Idiot Land on Idiots Get In Free Day. Thank you American Public. I've made you all into Sims. I'm murdering you in slow and calculating ways as we speak. Alphabetically, in fact.

Hey Ma!

Check it out - I just did a graphics set up for my blog and it's not pink! I know, scary, huh? I doubt i'm done. The grey back needs a perdyful thing, but the legibility is important...and i tend to sacrifice that in favor of pretty pictures, so tell me if things get hard to read.

By Popular Demand

This goes hand in hand with the last post I made, so i figured i'd post it, because it seems that Mike has managed, in all of his years on the internet, to miss this.

Dear Tech Support:

Last year I upgraded from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0. I soon noticed that
the new program began unexpected child processing that took up a lot of
space and valuable resources. In addition, Wife 1.0 installed itself into
all other programs and now monitors all other system activity.
Applications such as Poker Night 10.3, Football 5.0, Hunting and Fishing
7.5, and Racing 3.6 no longer run, crashing the system whenever selected.

I can't seem to keep Wife 1.0 in the background while attempting to run my
favorite applications. I'm thinking about going back to Girlfriend 7.0,
but the un-install doesn't work on Wife 1.0. Please help!

Thanks,
A Troubled User. (KEEP READING)
______________________________________

REPLY:
Dear Troubled User:

This is a very common problem that men complain about.

Many people upgrade from Girlfriend 7.0 to Wife 1.0, thinking that it is
just a Utilities and Entertainment program. Wife 1.0 is an OPERATING
SYSTEM and is designed by its Creator to run EVERYTHING!!! It is also
impossible to delete Wife 1.0 and to return to Girlfriend 7.0. It is
impossible to un-install, or purge the program files from the system once
installed.

You cannot go back to Girlfriend 7.0 because Wife 1.0 is designed to not
allow this. Look in your Wife 1.0 manual under
Warnings-Alimony-Child Support. I recommend that you keep Wife 1.0 and
work on improving the situation. I suggest installing the background
application "Yes Dear" to alleviate software augmentation.

The best course of action is to enter the command C:\APOLOGIZE because
ultimately you will have to give the APOLOGIZE command before the system
will return to normal anyway.

Wife 1.0 is a great program, but it tends to be very high maintenance.
Wife 1.0 comes with several support programs, such as Clean and Sweep 3.0,
Cook It 1.5 and Do Bills 4.2.

However, be very careful how you use these programs. Improper use will
cause the system to launch the program Nag Nag 9.5. Once this happens, the
only way to improve the performance of Wife 1.0 is to purchase additional
software. I recommend Flowers 2.1 and Diamonds 5.0!

WARNING!!! DO NOT, under any circumstances, install Secretary With Short
Skirt 3.3. This application is not supported by Wife 1.0 and will cause
irreversible damage to the operating system.

Best of luck,
Tech Support

Mind The Dust

I got motivated last night by my total inability to sleep....and I decided to do the thing that i've been threatening to do since Blogger did its revamp and I switched to this template. In any case, don't mind the dust and watch for falling bits of plaster whilest I edit the template and change the color scheme. The graphic was way easier to edit....

For the record - i've been up for an hour already and I hold each and every one of you personally responsible.