The Best Thing To Come Out Of Canada

Blitz Mints

Oh how I love them.

They're these little minty things - kinda like tic tacs, but with WAY more flavor. They taste soooooo orange! I love them so much.

This tribute to Blitz mints brought to you by a lack of anything better to do and the overwhelming sadness that comes with running out :(

An Ode To: The Godfather

Obvious sentimental attachments aside, I really really love these movies.

The sentimental attachments stem, of course, from my Great Grandmother who recently passed. We knew her as Gram but she was always joked about as "The Godfather" for her astonishing ability to command a thirty member family at all times. She seemed not only to hold us together in a way that no one else ever will, but she wore resemblances to Vito Corleone in her demeanor and even her speech at times. She will be missed.

But, I said - that aside :)

Some of the greatest lines ever to come out of cinematography have stemmed directly from these movies. The gratuitous violence I could do without, I'll admit, but there has never been something more quickly apt at making me remember why I wish I knew a man who could speak Italian. *swoons*

"What did I ever do to make you treat me so disrespectfully?"
"If there is anything we have learned from history, it is that you can kill anyone"
"Finance is a gun. Politics is knowing when to pull the trigger."

So here I am, when I should be sleeping, watching it through *throws on heavy accent* Sunday, Monday, Tuesday...and making lasagna!

All I need now is some good company and some biscotti to make it the night of all nights :) Oh, well, that and not having to go to work tomorrow.

Also Posted At [Features]

What Anime Leads To

Yup...

*glares reprovingly*

I'm Going To Sephora Land

Well, I haven't quite figured out who's going with me, but I think a trip to Chicago is warrented here. I need to go to Sephora, and maybe Vickies, and maybe FAO....Yeah, shut up. I know the irony in the list.

Maybe i'll pull the valentines day card and make Mike go with me :)

I'm Feeling Green.

I have Split Pea Soup coming out of my ears. No, this is not the Exorcist.

I mentioned at work that I like Split Pea soup and haven't had any in several years. I also mentioned this at home, at my grandfather's house, and to Mike, all of it, seemingly, to no avail.

All of my efforts have come to fruition in one day. I'm going to be so fucking sick of Split Pea soup...:)

Scott, one of my co-workers (read: bible thumper), had Split Pea soup for dinner last night and brought me a container today. Mike's father made Split Pea soup yesterday and, naturally, I have to steal some tonight.

So yes, i'm feeling Green.

Okay, This Is Reaching New Levels

I got plenty of sleep last night, i'm not really even tired today at all but right now i'm completely brain dead. It started about an hour and a half ago, they started talking about the computer system not working and my head just shut off....

It's really strange, everything is kinda floaty, my eyes feel funny and they'll barely stay open. Either someone drugged me, we have a carbon monoxide leak, or today is just really that boring. I thought caffinne would help, so I had a Mountain Dew. I think I may actually be more loopy now that i've had the soda.

Quick, someone! Pinch me!

National "Not-A-Damn-Dime" Day

Apparently today is the day we're all supposed to flex our economic muscles and show President (oh-how-reluctantly-i-say-that) Bush that the American people have control over his job.

Well, we did show him that when we...re-elected him?

In any case, I suck at that. Today I have to go to the store and buy two giant bags of Kisses because apparently the people working in the shop are two. We're trying to bring in a new system which requires them to actually do their job descriptions and you know how hard it is to get people to go for things like that. That said, Linda told me to keep a bag of Kisses in my desk for the good like middle-aged boys and girls who turn in their paperwork. :)

Oy vey.

The other bag is for my personal consumption cuz every girl needs a little chocolate in her life :)

And i have to get bread and dinner of some kind...oooh, and I spent $40,000 on behalf of my company today :)

I'm Very Popular Lately

I just thought i'd say "Howdy!" to all of the people who've been comment on my blog recently and, due to its content, offering me their condolances. Well, mostly, I just think "Howdy" is a funny word and I look for any opportunity to use it. :) In any case, hello there all! I hope you find my random babbling more amusing that Mike does :)

I Think I'm Getting Sick

I've made it this far! Through two bouts of the stomach flu through my workplace and a few colds and it's sad, almost, to go down now.

There's a bad case of a sore throat and sick stomach going around. Now the sore throat may just be from all of the tea i've sucked down today as a replacement for my heavily caffinated friend, coffee, but the sick stomach is undeniable.

I just don't feel good :(

So again, for the bazillionth time this week, I have to go home and I don't get the opportunity to see my other half :( *kisses and huggles from a vast non-sick getting distance*

There It Is

Tonight I cried until i threw up.

In so many ways, its a relief.

Since I found out Gram was sick i've been able to feel it building but there were things that needed to be done - phone calls that needed to be made - last wishes to be carried out and tonight, for the first time since she really got sick i just sat and cried.

My New Job

Contrary to what the title would make you think, I don't have a new job yet, but oh - I will.

I didn't come to work yesterday because my Great-Grandmother passed away and I was up all night with the family and spent the day working on funeral arrangements. So, when I showed up this morning there was, as I expected, a giant pile of things that I needed to do. However, as you may or may not recall, when I was hired here, I was hired to answer phones. Phone calls do not pile-up as such, but since I started i've picked up some other odd jobs around the place because, frankly, I was bored. I'm still making the same salary, mind you. But, back to today.

Still a bit upset and completely exhausted, I arrive to find my pile oh-things that need to be entered, changed over, transfered, and completed and promptly sit down to do them a mind a moat of condolances only to find that my computer doesn't work. *shakes head* Apparently the new server changeover didn't appreciate my PC and, since I wasn't here yesterday, Jan (IT) took the opportunity to ignore it. (We'll just neatly brush aside the notion that if I were the IT department and I knew server changeovers were going to be fussy, i'd be sure to do it while I knew the person using said computer was out of the office.) As i'm putzing around waiting for him to give me my chair back, my boss comes to me and says "Hey, can you do me a favor. Those last four purchase orders you made for Carlson? The fax machine screwed up the prints, find the prints and send them new copies via mail." Not a problem, says I and off I go to find the job tickets, grab the prints, make copies and stick them in an envelope.

Oh, how wrong I was.

First, I ask Scott what he did with the job tickets. Oh, well he gave them to Char. Now Scott is a nice guy, so he goes out onto the floor and retrieves the tickets to give to me. I open the tickets, make the copies and proceed to realize that one of the packets has no print. Now, i'm running around chicken sans head trying to find the print. I can't find it, but, apparently that's okay! Or so says my boss when I ask him if he has any idea where it is (he loses things on his desk very frequently.) He doesn't actually need the last four purchase orders i sent to Carlson, he needs the last for Job tickets to Carlson that I made purchase orders for. Well, yippy-dippy, I just wasted 20 minutes, but what the hell, they're paying me for it. That just means its 20 fewer minutes I have to sit here twiddling my thumbs.

As said boss is flipping through the prints he does need, he suddenly points out that, hey! these aren't the right kind of prints! You can imagine the expression of the girl in the pink sweater who was hired to answer phones when she realizes that there are two types of prints in an envelope that actually only contains one print. Apparently when I ship to Carlson, i need to ship Blank Prints instead of regular prints, which probably have a name but no one here has seen fit to tell me what that is yet either. Although, really, I don't need to know since I answer phones. The difference between a blank print and a regular print is, well, one generally has fuzzy fax machine lines on it and one doesn't. Nope, not kidding. I mean, don't get me wrong, the drawings are different but they're different for every part, for every customer, for every order, so there is not constant there. They don't say anything different on them or have any mitigating factor other than that the blank prints come off of the printer, not the fax.

Off I go in my pink sweater and cute non-manufacturing friendly shoes to go find the blank prints that aren't in the job packets. Wait a minute? I'm in the master files and, yet, there isn't a single blank print in any of these folders. Why not? Linda? No. Ronnie? No. Scott? No. Char? No. Glen? No. Well what the hell, where are the blank prints? They're on the bosses computer? You mean to tell me he sent me off to find a blank print and the only place they are in existence is his PC which only he has access to and I was just in his office and he knows I don't have the blank print? Oy vey.

After a little poking and prodding of one of the few females in the office I discover that they've already made copies of the proper prints, which they had my boss print for them, attached them to new copies of the purchase orders and placed them with the material in question. Now, naturally, they're not going to tell me this because my boss wants me to learn how to do this.

Now, pardon me, and half of the office, for saying so, but I the only thing I learned here is the difference between a regular print and a blank print. Don't get me wrong, this will doubtless prove to be a valuable piece of information if I continue working here, however, I'm a fast learner - he could've just held up two prints and said this is a "blank print" this is a "regular print." Carlson gets blank prints. If you ever need one, come and get me so I can print it because I'm far to lazy to give them to Linda to put into job packets. The problem here was not with my faxing skills, nor my originzational skills, nor my looking skills. The problem here was with the fact that my boss never gave me the proper print. A more seasoned employee (someone who had been told the difference between the two types of prints) would have realized the print was missing and gone to ask for it immediately, but as I had no idea, I didn't.

Things like this happen every day to the girl who answers the phones.

Sensing my disgust with the entire situation, my exhaustion, frustration over certain family members putting certain deceased family members in certain plastic containers with blue lids that can be purchased at the grocery store 10 for $2, and massive caffeine consumption over the last 72 hours, others seemed to anticipate that the odds of me walking into said bosses office, throwing the job tickets down on his desk and launching into a tirade about how backwards this company is run and that if he did his job in the first place and gave that print to Linda when he gave her the purchase order for the tooling, like he is supposed to, this could have been, and would have been, done correctly, (I probably also would have finished in a lovely flourish of throwing my morning coffee at him as I walked out the front door) Linda went into Colin's office whilest I was doing my job (remember, I answer phones) and had at him about a) trying to teach an intelligent person a lesson as if they were a four year old and b) not doing his job in the first place. Linda can do that - she's the owners sister-in-law.

Now, I'm not only midly depressed, over-tired, coffee-less, and hungry, but I have a horrible migraine and in addition to the remaining funeral arrangments and assorted things I need to finish in conjunction with that tonight, I have find a new job because I'm having visions of growing up to be Linda. (She's worked here for 12 years and she's constantly about two seconds from quitting because, apparently, everything here is run like this and always has been.)

Oy vey.

The Cycle

A moment of a silence, please, for the woman who taught me everything I know about getting what I want.

As the Heart Remembers Spring
by Betty W. Stoffel

Some will be remembered
For the fortunes of their fame.
And some will be remembered
For the naming of a name,
But you will be remembered
As the heart remembers spring,
As the mind remembers beauty,
And the soul each lovely thing.
You have been skies of April,
And fragrant breath of May.
And like the season’s coming,
Warm-spirited and gay.
You have given freely
Of the beauty of your heart,
And you have made of friendship
Not a gesture, but an art.
You have been as selfless
In the gracious things you do
As the sun that shares its kisses
As the night that shares its dew.
You have planted roses
In the lives that lay so bare,
You have sown encouragement
To those who knew despair.
By your spirits’ inner beauty
In every lovely thing,
You will be remembered
As the heart remembers spring

One Horse Towns

Today has been a very long day. Tomorrow will be another very long day. You know why? Because I live in a one horse town. Not literally, of course, and really, barely figuratively either, but nevertheless, it just seems to get smaller and smaller every day.

Perhaps its the circles I travel in. Perhaps its that I don't really have a circle to travel in :P. Or maybe, just maybe, it's because you only ever run in to people you really don't want to see. All I know is that I'm waiting for the day when I can stop watching blogs, running furtive op's to find out who is going to be where when, ducking in and out of stores, parking lot scanning, and hiding everytime someone knocks on the door. I'm just looking for that golden opportunity to happen upon my doorstep...not that I'd answer it of course, because I don't answer the door anymore, but ya know...

In the mean time, i'll be the one in all black ducking behind your bushes.

Jesus Christ

EDIT: THe comment left on this post by one...eric (?) seems to imply that I would do well with the use of some quotation marks.

Someone remind me why I do this.

"Harrypotterfanfiction.com deleted my story for NO reason!!!! I worked really hard on it, and I don't know why they deleted it. I was sent an e-mail that said i had violated the TOS rules or whatever. I am very mad, and if I did violate a rule you should have warned me before you erased my story! I HATE this website now, because you guys erased my story for now reason, and I had worked on for 2 YEARS NOW!!!!!! I DEMAND THAT YOU POST MY STORY UP OR TELL ME WHAT I DID WRONG SO THAT I CAN FIX MY STORY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "

And then, two minutes later (litterally)

"Dear Harrypotter people,
I got an e-mail that said that my story might have been deleted because:

No chapter was submitted.

The submission was an author's note only chapter or was too short.

The rating was considered incorrect.

It contains graphic sexual content.

We do not accept lists, interactive writing, or anything similar.

I WOULD LIKE TO INFORM YOU THAT THE RATING I PUT WAS CORRECT. IS THE WORD "sexy" A BAD WORD?? BECAUSE I USESD THAT WORD AND I DON'T THINK IT IS A BAD WORD. ALSO THE CHAPTER WAS NOT SHORT & I DIDN'T HAVE ANY LISTS. I DEMAND THAT YOU PUT MY STORY UP!!!!!!!!!!!! OR WILL U PLEASE LET ME FIX OR CHANGE IT????????"

And then, 10 minutes later than that..

"DEAR HARRYPOTTER PEOPLE:
I WILL LIKE TO INFORM YOU THAT I WILL NOT STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT YOUR UNFAIRNESS UNTIL YOU POST MY STORY. U GUYS ERASED MY STORY FOR SOME STUPID REASON. I AM THOROUGHLY ENRAGED. WHAT YOU GUYS DID WAS VERY CRUEL. I HAD BEEN WORKING ON THAT STORY DAY AND NIGHT. I WAS VERY PROUD OF IT. THE STORY HAD HELPED ME IMPROVE MY WRITING. BUT THEN U GUYS ERASED IT!!!!!!!!! YOU HARRYPOTTER PEOPLE SHOULD WARN PEOPLE IF THEY RATE THEIR STORY WRONGLY.

ALSO I WAS GOING TO SUPPORT YOUR WEBSITE BECAUSE I LOVED IT SO MUCH AND I THOUGHT THAT THE MONEY WOULD GO TO A GOOD CAUSE, BUT NOW I WILL NEVER DONATE ANYTHING!!!!!!!!! YOU GUYS DON'T KNOW HOW SHATTERED I FEEL. WRITING WAS MY ONE JOY, AND SO WAS HARRY POTTER BOOKS. YOU'VE BROKEN MY DREAM OF BECOMING A WRITER SINCE YOU TOOK MY STORY OFF THE WEB. DID YOU EVEN READ THE STORY?! I AM VERY STRESSED ABOUT THIS. I EVEN ERASED MY OTHER STORY BECAUSE I FELT LIKE AN IDIOT. BECAUSE MY STORY WASN'T GOOD ENOUGH"

For the record, I left this girl a very nice reply, and she hasn't said a word since. There's something inherently amusing about the way people jump up in your face and then realize its there fault and refuse to have anything to do with you after that.

Circumstances

Did you ever wonder if the best thing to do wouldn't be just to catch a plane and say goodbye to the things you can't seem to get away from?

This Has To Be Blasphemy

Jesus Blinks!

Odd Things You Never Realized Were On The Internet But, Now That You've Seen Them, Make You Say "I Should've Known"

age of consent.com

So today we were trying to decide what "ships" would be permitted into the archive. The site is based in britain, but has an inordinate amount of international traffic. The staff canvasas the globe - we used to live on every continent (except that really freezy one.) Well, anyway, we've been having a rash of student/teacher submissions lately and we wanted to get an official ruling on what was permissable and what wasn't. So, we were discussing how far we can allow people to push a relatively taboo subject to allow their own freedom of submission, and yet limit it so as not to be grossed out everytime we open the queue.

I searched "International Age Of Consent" in hopes of getting a complete listing. For some reason, i never really thought I would, but I guess, where there's a potential child porn ring, there's a way.

Oooohhh! A Brave Soul

At 7:40 PM, Takin said...
Hey KayI dont know if u remember me or not but i was a fan of ur story at the HP website. Anyways I just wanted you to know that this news was very old. and another thing, when an 11 year old can break into a house and steel, then y cant we expect him to carry a gun, rape or even kill someone. This issue should not be pointed at the media. Because the media only shows was the majority craves, in another word the media reflects our own thoughts media was born by us. The ones that should take responisbility are the parents, specially those wo do whatever they wish, but then expect their children to become perfect citizens. Another group that should be accused is the government, in my beliefe they are too gentle with the society, why should people even have guns. The government should have more control over the society. When the FBI reports that a percentage of the terrorists are natural born Americans, we ask ourselves where did they come from, well they have been in front of you all the time commiting differnet crime, you just didnt see it coming.

This is from a comment I recieved today on a post made a few days ago.

Old news? Yeah, probably. There is a very good reason that I stay away from the front page of the news paper and TV news: they report these stories. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad that they report them. I don't want things like this to become a taboo again, nor do I want youths (and adults) de-sensatized to the material, but I know its a travesty and a violation of the very core of human rights (no, not the fluffy kind - the kind that say I should be safe in my own home kind). I don't need TV news to reenforce it. Frankly, it makes me nauseous.

As to your second point, there is a grave difference between stealing property and threatening life or limb. For someone to break into a home and steal something from someone is a violation of their privacy and, can at times, reach into a violation of their safety, but property is just that, property. It's stuff. My stero being stolen will cost me a few hundred dollars. Being raped costs you, and those around you, something much deeper. It transcends everything you do for the rest of your life no matter how far you move from it or how much therapy you undergo. What that steals is irreprable - it steals your sense of security. You can't replace that with a few hundred dollars.

Where the blame lays, I don't know. To a certain extent, it exists everywhere. I mentioned earlier that people are desensitized to things - indifferent to tragedy until it hits close to home. As tuned in as I am to certain things, when the 10 o'clock news reports a murder, it has no real impact on me. I move on with my daily life, a little bit more jaded, a little bit more disappointed with humanity. On some level - I should have a reaction to that. Someone was killed a life was taken, not lost but taken. There should be some outcry. Unfortunately, I've become accustom to seeing and hearing it. It's almost to be expected.

Whether you're from the U.S. or not, I don't recall. In the event that you're not, perhaps you're simply unfamilliar with our news stations. I would be willing to gamble 100 dollars that within the first 20 minutes of a local newscast at least one murder/rape will be reported on. That might not seem so bad, but in order to really understand the horrible nature of it, you'd probably have to see the broadcast.

A family mourns today over the death of a 23 year-old, unidentified male. He passed away at Mercy Hosptial last night, vicitm of a drive by shooting. The suspects are black males, approximately 17-20 years of age. A blue, 1995, Lincoln Towncar was seen pulling away from the scene of the crime. A memorial service will be held at 10 am in Meyers Square. And now, on to national news...

I'm not an idiot. I don't blame the media in their entirity. How many times a day do we air footage of soldiers wounded in Iraq, car bombings, tapes of hostages awaiting beheadings, tapes of soldiers abusing prisoners, tapes of iraqi children with their legs blown off, cowering families? These are attrocities perpatrated by governments - many of them our own. The actions of any large, social institution have an impressive impact on a society - they form a society. Regardless of the your standing on the left or the right, the images, actions and disucssions have an impact on everyone.

Where were these boys parents? Well, they could have been anywhere. Work, Night School, Home, etc... Never underestimate or assume the situations. Are they at fault - yes, of course - but, in no greater capacity than anything else. Should they have been paying more attention - Yes. Clearly they've made an error in judgement somewhere and allowed one of the "important things" to slip away. The children in question were impoverished, african american children, but that has nothing to do it. There are weathly and middle american families individuals and they, too, commit the same crimes. It's just not publicised that way. Trust Me. Say they didn't teach their children right from wrong? Sure. Again, an error in judgement. The fact of the matter is, no parent has control over what a child does, no matter how hard they try to impress their values upon them - that is, short of locking them in the house. (A wise move in this incident.)

You mentioned gun control, a point on which I have to segway briefly. The U.S. Constitution defends the right to "bear arms" in the Bill of Rights. It's a valuable ammendement, but I'm not a strict constructionist. Yes, the constitution defended that right - but it defended that right in a time of the wild west, a disorganized militia, and hunting for your very sustainance. That said, the application of that ammendment are smaller today. 1. When the constitution was ratified, the most damage you could do was a fairly simple hand gun. One of those wild west "pistols" you see in Blazing Saddles. Today, "arms" constitutes air assualt rifles, tanks, nuclear weaponry, and small stones. See? Not a good idea. However, we've been sane enough to limit it to "guns." Now, if you're wiling to limit the original wording of the Bill of Rights, then you must be willing to accept that societies change and evolve, which was the entire point of ammendments in the first place. On that note, why not restrict the Assault Rifles? Please, someone explain to me the rational use of an assualt rifle for civilians. Note, rational and legal. My father is a hunter, and while I think he's an idiot (and a negligant gun owner), there is no reason he should not be able to use a hunting rifle to go hunting. Guns used to kill people = Problem. Guns used to kill dear = Stupid Passtime that should be done away with but what the hell am I going to do about it.

The problem, in my mind, is not a lack of governmental control. Note how much faster, cheaper, and better anything can be done in the private sector. Ask Wal-Mart to build a SuperCenter the same size as a government office building and I gaurentee you, Wal-Mart will have it done by their deadline, over budget - but still less than yuck-schmuck-government-employee managed to do it - and odds are, it won't need to be replaced or remodeled in the next 15 minutes. Public schools in my city recieve $8,500 for each student who shows up on "count day." The private school I attended charged the same amount per student. The buildings are cleaner, books newer, teachers better, materials higher quality, and facilities higher-calibur in a Private school (or, at least the ones I went to.) Why? They had to fight the bloat. They weren't gaurenteed anything. They weren't gaurenteed a customer - so they had to work for their name. They weren't gaurenteed funding - so they had to keep cost effective at all times. It is, in my mind, the function of the federal government to impose standards on a society, not mother them. When the government tries to mother things - well, it's just not pretty.