Taking stock

Some holiday highlights: My son's excitement over the bike that Santa got him "from Wal-Mart" (that he now shows zero interest in actually riding). The toy that came with pictures for the assembly instructions and no text. NOT having to run around like mad to visit two families, and being able to take our time opening gifts. My brother-in-law showing up to Christmas dinner with his girlfriend and her two kids when the night before he'd said they would be there for dessert...and not bringing presents for anyone (they did bring cookies, but they were inedible). A wonderful dinner. My son freaking out over a lizard. Pecan pie as pecan soup. A dancing penguin that sings "Ice Ice Baby". Duplicate gifts. Gift receipts. Finishing Neverwhere between dinner and dessert. Having to work the next day...

...and Christmas chickens.


What I got for Christmas, thus far:

• Bladerunner two-disc special edition and The Princess Bride anniversary edition on DVD



• The new Jimmy Eat World CD (which I forgot to take with me to work this morning)



• Stress Management for Dummies...with a B&N gift card inside!



• A new photo album



• The exact same Monty Python desk calendar that I bought for my husband (great minds...?)



• Wall mounted candle holders in a style that will go with the decor in my bedroom whenever I redecorate my bedroom (I got something like this last year as well)



• A huge wall-mounted photo collage frame along with a comment about how there's nothing on the walls in my house so, hint-hint



• gift cards for restaurants



• A sweater I will be returning, probably



• A book by Mitch Albom I will probably never read and can't trade because it has an inscription in the front cover



• A tabletop fountain almost exactly like I got last year for Christmas (and the year before, I believe), and that will also sit in my closet because I don't have the space - or the inclination - to display a fountain, even though no on in my husband's family seems to have noticed this...I'm sure I'll get another one next year and somehow collecting them will become my unintentional hobby/compulsion...so at least it's fountains instead of, say, cats...

...and as of tonight, I have a broken couch. So, I guess you could say I got a new couch for Christmas. Even though I didn't want one.

We didn't get to see my parents yet, so we'll see them this weekend to exchange gifts. And we still have a couple of friends to exchange gifts with, also.

I'm currently going through Neverwhere withdrawals. It honestly was one of the better quasi-fantasy stories I've ever read, and I'm more of a straight sci-fi fan rather than fantasy, but I didn't want the book to end. I'm disappointed to find that there are no other books on my shelves that I want to read right now. I do have $40 worth of B&N gift cards, so I'm sure it's a situation I can rectify, if I need to. Neverwhere and Stardust are now tied for my favorite Gaiman stories. I'll have to ask for the miniseries for my birthday. Along with the Fizzgig plushie. For those who might need reminders of those things...

On a slightly related note, for fans of Pratchett's Discworld series, the miniseries adaptation is available at Borders right now, and then a general retail release is also anticipated for March.

It's also being posted on YouTube in installments. This is installment 1 of 22:


Remember how I was saying we had three resignations, and I was waiting for the other shoe to drop? This morning we had resignation number three. I actually laughed. I think I scared some people. I also found out this afternoon that one of that department's part-time employees had the wrong hourly rate information entered into the payroll system and the employee has been paid almost four times what he was owed over the course of the last several months. And never said a word to his supervisor, who also never caught the discrepancy while approving the payroll. That was when I pretty much threw up my hands. Thankfully I have the next week off to regain some semblance of sanity. I'll just be reading my Stress Management for Dummies book and teaching my son to ride his new bike without falling off and breaking a bone.

Deluge

At some time last night my son's room experienced a minor flooding incident. The pipe for the emergency drain in my bathtub is completely corroded and no longer connects properly to the main drain - if water goes above the overflow drain (which will happen if you put too much water in the tub or slosh around too much) it basically drains into the floor under the bathtub and into the next room, which happens to be my son's. Of course, we weren't fully aware of this until early this morning when my son came into my room saying that his blankets were all wet. Since he's only five and still sometimes has bladder control issues, I figured he'd had an accident. But when I walked into his room there was a large puddle of standing water on one side of the room, seeming to lead back from under the bed. The comforter on the bed had been half on the floor, so it apparently soaked up a lot of the water during the night and ended up drenching the mattress as well. Since most of the furniture in my son's room is particle board, we had to move the bookcase and dismantle the bed to mop up the water before too much swelling happened and the stuff was ruined. At least the floor is tarazzo now instead of carpet, so it was fairly easy to clean up. We did suffer the loss of my son's bean bag chair, since it got completely soaked and had to be thrown away. He was getting a little too big for it anyway, so maybe we'll buy one of those gaming chairs to replace it. I guess this explains why the carpet tack in that room was rotted out and the tarazzo was discolored when we pulled up the carpet. Mystery solved. Now I know I probably need a new tub with all new plumbing. Which means I probably need a new bathroom...

I think when I'm done with Neverwhere (and I'm halfway there already), I'll take a break from Neil Gaiman and read some Umberto Eco. I read The Name of the Rose a very long time ago, and think I should re-read it and also pick up Foucault's Pendulum and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana. Of course, I'm also reading The Time Traveler's Wife and it has yet to really catch my attention (so far I've found it infuriatingly plodding and dull, to be honest), but I'm only a few chapters in. I'll give it a little bit more time before I decide whether to keep going or not. Considering how overwhelmingly popular this book is, and how many people have gone out of their way to tell me how great it was I'm a little disappointed, so far. But as I've stated before, I'm not exactly a romantic, so I'm not one of those people who really enjoys treacly "timeless love stories" or star crossed anything, so the whole cliched tugging at the heartstrings approach doesn't really rate as great fiction to me. A certain amount of tragedy I can handle, but when it comes to a story centered around "everlasting love transcending the reaches of time"...I have a hard time suspending my disbelief.

I have things to do tonight, so the fact that I'm posting means I'm procrastinating - again. I have a house that needs tidying (I was reminded earlier this evening that there are dishes to do and a bathroom to clean).


I got all ambitious and decided to make a scrapbook for my mother-in-law. So I have two days to do that. I was lazy and sent out NO Christmas cards. I'm making something for my Grandparents in Pennsylvania, but it won't be ready until after the holidays, so it'll be a late surprise. I was hopeing to make it up there in a couple months, but it is looking less and less like that is going to happen. So maybe next year.

Festive fakery and fun fa la la la la...la la la la

Christopher Walken is not actually running for President. The world might be a better place, if he were. Every child would get a pocket watch (but don't ask where it has been), and there would be more cowbell. And as far as I know, he does not have a blog. So the website I found isn't really his, but it is full of amusing content that might be close to Walken's style, so the fact that it probably isn't genuinely written by him won't keep me from enjoying it any less. At least it's not the guy going to auditions and making a MySpace profile posing as Walken's son. That's just sad.

"I'd love to do a character with a wife, a nice little house, a couple of kids, a dog, maybe a bit of singing, and no guns and no killing, but nobody offers me those kind of parts."

Yes - that is Walken as the Hessian from Sleepy Hollow. Shilling Nog. I love Fark. I really, really do. Because scouring 4/chan for images leads one down the dark path to creepytown.

Oh, hey - according to some internet sources (and has been reported before) J.K. Rowling has considered (and still may be mulling over) the possibility of writing yet another Harry Potter book. She does give a little more insight into her vision of what the now grown members of the Potter posse would be up to (not enough Neville updates, grrr!), so the linked article may be worth a read. I know a person or two who wishes she'd hurry up with that damn encylopedia already.

Annnnd...saw the new Hellboy trailer. The original cast is intact. Can I just say....YESSSSS!

M - read a review tonight that says I Am Legend is almost awesome. Until the ending. Which is supposedly messy and awful and out of synch with the rest of the film. You'll tell me if it sucks. I trust your judgement.

Bad Omens

This morning while I was getting out of my car at work, my new copy of Neverwhere slipped out of my hand and landed in a puddle. I can't even fully articulate how upset I was. There may have been curse words uttered. Luckily it was a very shallow puddle and the book landed on the back cover instead of getting splayed out as it hit the ground, so the pages didn't really get too wet. I have it sitting under something heavy so the pages won't curl too badly as it dries. The strange thing is, as I was getting out of the car I noticed the puddle and thought to myself that it would suck if I dropped my book. So I went to adjust the stuff I was holding to be sure I wouldn't drop the book...and that's when it happened. I'm a terrible klutz who can fortell self fulfilling prophecies, apparently.

This is day two of being utterly alone at work. It's blissful and boring, so I may take the time to actually catch up on some things. Probably not, though. I have a couple of errands to run later in the afternoon. I think I'll stop by B&N to pick up a frappucino while I'm out.

What those of you in the Arctic North are missing:

Sunshine, beaches!!

I love how our IT is indescriminantly blocking access to websites now. And it's not even very consistant. Sometimes Blogger is blocked, and sometimes I can access it. They've decided to block YouTube today. So I'd like to wish them all a joyful effing holiday, considering that none of them are even probably here today.

This is not a difficult concept to grasp

Help for the holidays - one local news station unearths the truth about what men want for Christmas with some seriously hard hitting journalism. The article itself is pointless, but read the comments (and the related Fark thread, while you're at it). I wonder if they're really going to read these on the air tonight? I may have to tune in. By the way, if you need your local TV news hacks telling you what to get your husband /SO for the holidays, maybe you really should just spend time with your cats and stop delaying the inevitable.

I'm freezing. They keep the place like a meat locker when it is so nice out. Just baffling. Off to cancel a pointless meeting and make some cocoa to warm me bones.

The more things change

One of my departing colleagues just dropped off a thank you card for me. It's nice to know that the things I do that seem to be unnoticed by management are at least appreciated by my peers. Or actually, former peers. I was talking to the boss's assistant the other day, and she's fairly new, so we got on the subject of all of the turnover and how it affects staff productivity and "morale". The result was it seems to affect other people in the organization, throwing them off kilter and disrupting their ability to function. I don't quite understand this. To me it's no big deal. But I used to work in TV production, where whole departments were eliminated in the course of a day and half your crew could just walk out one night. Or your coworker could show up wasted and end up passed out in the breakroom leaving you to handle several hours of a live broadcast while the supervisor tried to make sure your shiftmate wasn't in jail or dead in a gutter somewhere. The halcyon days of live retail television broadcast production are well behind me, but the effects of the experience I gained (and the changes it manifested in me as a person) still linger. Some valuable lessons I was able to take away with me, that help me function on multiple levels:

1) Turnover happens. You'll just have to do more with less, and hopefully it won't be a long term situation. But if it is, parlay it into a way to showcase your organizational and leadership skills - management loves that crap. They'll eat it with a spoon from the palm of your hand.

2) I can handle just about anything. Once you've dealt with swing shift sleep deprivation, had a producer call you stupid and a supervisor throw things at you, survived the resident harpy host's withering glance of death only to win her over by bringing fresh coffee and become one of a handful of people she trusts to be competant enough to allow anywhere near her, endured the people you work with reinacting middle school by making scathing fun of everything about you en mass and learned to see the humor in it and join in yourself...well, a lot of personal growth happened during those times. Not to mention working a very physically and emotionally intense job while heavily pregnant, actually going into labor at work, and insiting on finishing out my shift and driving myself home while having contractions. So, yeah. I'm stronger than I give myself credit for, and I can deal.

3) Stressful situations can lead to bonding. The bonding can be a boon by creating friendships and reinforcing a support system, but sometimes that bonding is a little too intense and can lead to an unhealthy reliance on or expectation of another person. You need to be able to recognize the signs of bonding gone wrong and correct the course before it goes too far or irreperable damage is done.

4) No one is perfect. You can like someone personally and still think they suck at their job. And someone can be and do all the things you despise in their personal life and still be the best at what they do on the job.

So I'm here all alone for the next two days. Good thing I brought Neverwhere with me. And there's always the internet...

In stasis

I originally drafted this Monday night, and lost interest halfway through. I'm resurrecting it to have something to do.

The facts of reality as I know it right now: It is kind of cold outside (this is a relative kind of cold, so don't start in on your tales of snow and blah blah blah). My knee hurts (I fell outside of my son's school today and skinned my hand, my elbow, and one of my knees pretty bad...plus I bruised my fragile ego by taking a tumble in public). And I want to go to Pennsylvania. As in now. Tomorrow. Next week. Whenever I can.

M got me some awesome gifts. I swear, she knows me better than anyone. And she is more than a little psychic, I'm sure of it. How else would she have chosen to buy me Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, even though I'd never mentioned the book to her, and at the exact time it was on the Christmas list I gave to my husband? Uncanny!

The Golden Compass was actually not bad. They left out a large portion of the more controversial elements, and the story was kind of choppy and hard to follow, but it wasn't the worst movie I've paid to see. (the first book was compressed into the first twenty minutes or so of exposition, then the meat of the film encompassed most of the second book) *edited because I think I was misinformed and passing bad plot info...my bad!*

The best part:

There was one scene that affirmed the film's PG-13 rating. It was intense.

I'd like to see I Am Legend. But it has zombie/vampire things, so I probably won't go to see it due to not having anyone to go with me and my love/paralyzing fear realtionship issues with zombies. Vampires make me laugh, though, so if they're more the latter than the former I may be able to handle it.

It's a week before Christmas Eve. Two weeks before the impending new year. I hope everyone one is as full of mixed emotions as I am.

My new coworker got me a gift card to B&N, so that way I can either get more books or some Fauxbucks if the mood strikes me. It was incredibly thoughful and I felt awful that I had decided not to give gifts to the coworkers this year. And speaking of books - I just finished The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle. What an amazing novel - on par with The Lovely Bones as far as the tones of overwhelming tragedy and loss, though. I've been struggling through an obscure story by H.G. Wells and started The Time Traveler's Wife (which has me thoroughly befuddled a few chapters in). I may put them both aside and start on Neverwhere tonight, once my chores are done.

In other news, the closing of my son's school will be delayed at least a year. Our school board is a mess. And four members of the board believe that Intelligent Design should be taught in county classrooms. Sometimes I think I'd like to move somewhere else before permanant damage is done to the logic centers in my son's still developing brain by the strangers "looking out for his best interests".

It's not like these are society's brightest and best...

In light of the fact that I have done some tweaking to my link lists and content, I thought I'd share something from the To Do List blog.

A list of possible screen names. The list includes such gems as:

Resident Zombie
Lord of the Hobbits

...actually, those were the two best. Only because they reference either zombies or hobbits. And they sound like failed band name ideas. The rest were horrrrible. I mean, they certainly can't compare to Urban Flood or Zombie Apocalypse. Those are all mine, baby.

Feel free to read the lamer offerings on the list.

The party's here on the West side.

Courtesy of The Jingler website, which claims to be able to turn any song into a Christmas tune (mostly via intermittant jingly jangly sleigh bell sounds), I give you Bat For Lashes "What's A Girl To Do", Christmas 2007 Edition (press the arrow below to play):



Upload your favorite songs and add some jing at The Jingler.

Also, in honor of the swiftly approaching holiday, here's one of my absolute favorite scenes from Invader Zim's Most Horrible X-mas Ever:



As an update to my previous post, I went to the party, took some food, and went back to my office. I was later informed that in my absence I had won one of the big door prizes. Not a t-shirt. A three night hotel stay at one of the local "luxury" hotels. So, my employer just gave me my anniversary present. Maybe it's a sign of my luck turning around? Or not.

My son amended his list for Santa today. It is now composed of a jet (toy or actual pilotable jet, he declined to clarify); a pet snake (WTF - the kid is afraid of lizards!); and a toy mouse (again - what??). I asked him if he had a choice would he pick those things over the bike he originally asked Santa for a month ago, and his answer was a minute of silence and then "Well...no. I think I want a bike." Silence, and I think this conversation is over, and then he adds "And a pet snake." I had to tell him that Santa has a policy of not transporting live animals in his sleigh. They scare the reigndeer. Now, if he had asked for a puppy, I would have no doubt caved. Just don't tell my husband...

For M...sorry I couldn't get you this for Christmas, but it was a little out of my price range - a single leatherbound copy of The Tales of Beeble the Bard, handwritten and illustrated by J.K. Rowling, recently sold for a ridiculous sum through Sotheby's auction house. You can see pictures and read some excerpts thanks to Amazon, and that will have to console you.

And I JUST saw a bootlegged theatrical trailer for The Dark Knight (and no - sadly I'm not re-posting or linking to it here but you can find it at wwtdd.com or movieweb.com until the studio serves them with a cease and desist like they did for YouTube).
Could the unthinkable be possible? Could Heath Ledger really be the quintessential Joker?

rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

*Sigh* I'm sitting here a little bored, and a little pissed (long story) as the strains of SpongeBob Squarepants plays behind me. I'm tired. I guess that's all for now...

Where fun goes to die

I've had one of those weeks. I know - I seem to have a lot of those, don't I? I'm not sure why. A function of my tendancy to internalize and personalize things, I suppose. I've been kind of stressed, and some of it is from things I can do something about, but most of it is from events or circumstances completely out of my control. Like I was telling a stranger on a message board the other day - we only have so much control over other people and what they believe and the choices they make. Sometimes you just have to let it go. It's a hard lesson for me to follow, even though it seems like one of the most obvious things. But at least with this latest heartburn-inducing project basically off of my plate, I can settle back into the normal swing of things. Whatever the hell that is.

We've had two resignations in as many weeks. It has some people pretty freaked out, especially when I ominously proclaim that these things come in 3s.

There's a party at work this afternoon. Some people are saying that if management put as much effort into training and working on retention issues as was put into planning this party - with its theme, and prizes, and other miscellaneous pointless & meaningless warm fuzzies - this would be a better place to work and people might want to stay longer than six months to a year (or in some cases, three weeks). I know several people who have said they aren't going to bother attending. Personally, I like free food and the chance to win crappy door prizes, so I'm totally there. Who needs morale - just give me a cheap t-shirt and call it a day.

I'm a little ambivalent about the upcoming holidays. The weather has been reminiscent of summer, I've had little time to finish up my shopping, and I'm just really not in the mood this year. Which sucks, since my son is so excited that he's been asking every day "Is it Christmas today?". He woke up the day after we'd put the tree up expecting there to be presents under it. Sometimes I wish I could get that youthful joy back. But how?

Going to go exchange gifts with M this weekend and eat good food and see a (hopefully) good movie. I need a distraction, so this will be good for me.

You have it set on "whore."

Just a little while ago I was browsing through the sites of some fellow bloggers. I do this sometimes. Just kind of randomly hit the "next blog" button and see what comes up. So I hit the button. And all of a sudden I'm seeing some things I just don't want to see! It seems I had been redirected to porn. This is why I don't do any browsing during work time - you really never do know what you're going to get as you're clicking through. You're going along thinking Oh, a music blog. Ah, they post MP3s, sweet, just bookmark, and nex....ahhhhh, sweet merciful Jesus noooooo! as images of unspeakable things appear on the screen and you try to figure out how to navigate away as quickly as possible before someone walks past your cubicle of the damned.

Gah...how shall I strike the horrors I have unwittingly witnessed from my memory banks...*thinks of Clive Owen and a puppy frolicking in a field of daisies*...

...That's a little better. Moving on, now...

Have I mentioned lately that I think Javier Bardem is going to be one of my new favorite actors? Oh yes. It's true. Javier says "You will see Love in the Time of Cholera. You cannot resist me". And I cannot resist.

But I can resist this movie, which seems like a poor retelling of the older than dirt and over romanticised myth of eternal love. Today we would call this depth of emotion bordering on obsessive and punishable to the fullest extent of the law. Having never read the novel, I find the basic idea showcased by the film utterly depressing, but I'm not big on overwraught tales of unrequited love. Have a look at the movie's official website, just the same. I may read the book eventually, although I'm not sure I'll be moving it up on my list any time soon.

I've been posting a lot lately. I need a new hobby. And it is waaay past my bed time...

Winning at irony abnormally fast!!

On the heels of the knowledge that there is actually a Brawndo drink for sale (seriously - it has electrolytes and will make you need new pants), here are the ads for Powerthirst...harness the power of 400 babies!






Just for M, for all of your energy drink needs - Bawls. Now available at Target! So you can stop depending on me as your seedy back alley supplier.


And I just wanted to post this because it was cool -- a list of Pixar "in jokes" that tie the various films together. I'm partial to finding the Ray Harryhausen references in a lot of today's animated feature films, like the name of the restaurant in Monster's Inc. and the brand of piano in both Corpse Bride and Wallace and Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit.

The spirit of giving and all that crap

Over the last couple of days I've been going through my favorite websites, culling and sorting. Here are a few I thought I'd share. Don't say I never gave you anything...

I have no idea what caused me to save this...Friends With You is utterly weird and beyond description (hint: skip everything else and go straight to the gallery).

I have an inexplicable love of widgets. Widgetbox is a good site, and Konfabulator has a decent selection, too.

Pajiba is where I go for reviews of movies and tv and random missives on pop culture.

Because I love everything Jim Henson ever touched - I'm still waiting for my Dark Crystal sequel (and my Fizzgig plushie) - I like to keep up with the happenings at Muppet Central.

Now I'm going to go do some other stuff to waste my valuable time. I would be going to the grocery store right now, but my son decided to crash out on the living room floor and is not to be disturbed.

This is a fire door-never leave open.

Lately we've been keeping the main door closed. It cuts down on the noise from the rest of the building, almost totally eliminates the number of buzzing, flying annoyances, and keeps the food smells from the main corridor from infiltrating our space. It has smelled like pancake syrup out there for three days straight. I heard yesterday that while I was gone earlier this week the former co-worker came over and voiced her disapproval of the closed door. As far as I'm concerned, she can disapprove all she wants - it is none of her damn business whether the door is open or closed since she no longer works in the building. The boss is satisfied that we are productive and welcoming when we need to be, and he likes the quiet and the fact that there is no longer a steady stream of admirers and socializers that he has to wade through in order to get to his office - and the boss's opinion is the one that counts. It's a win-win for all of us, really. If I were equally petty, I'd walk down to the space she now occupies and find something to be disapproving about. I'm sure it wouldn't take long to find something...

Because my son was sick again (or still?) this week (bronchitis and an ear infection!), I had to reschedule my root canal. And wouldn't you know it - now that tooth starts to bother me!

It was discovered by a co-worker earlier today that our IT is starting to block access to certain websites. So far none of the ones I frequent have been targets of this campaign, but time will tell.

Go!

I didn't know the new Speed Racer movie was a Wachowski brothers project. The racing scenes look awesome, but I'm not crazy about the rest of it. As far as casting, I do think Matthew Fox was a good choice for Racer X, but I'm kind of meh about Emile Hirsch...and Christina Ricci and her fivehead make a horrrrrrible Trixie. Keep an eye out for Chim Chim in the trailer.

Here's a side by side for comparison:









I found the image and an overview of part of the cast at First Showing.

Lets make up some crap

M and I saw Colin Mochrie and Brad Sherwood at the Van Wezel in SRQ last night. Quite funny. The first bit, which was a staple on Whose Line, had me in a fit of laughter. Everything else in between was good, but the final part of the show had me crying. Apparently, it's a signature part of the show:

"I love this chicken neck. It's great."

Borderline creepy/fascinating?

Someone does not have a case of the...well, you know...

This morning I put up two pins from my Office Space Box of Flair: "I Believe You Have My Stapler" and "Did you get the memo". I decided that "I Could Set The Building On Fire" was not so much insubordinate as much as it was...incendiary. And that was not quite what I was going for in the subtlty department.

What Mondays are good for: Putting up Christmas decorations at work.
What Mondays are not good for: Working

My son came home from his weekend with the Grandparents with a bad cold (Thanks a lot Grams!!). He had a fever of over a hundred and two degrees last night, but the fever broke and he's just got a bad cough today. I swear, the kid has been sick with something or other for over a month. I think it's time for The Bubble.

Tomorrow I rush over to SRQ right after work to visit with M and see Colin Mochrie doing stand-up. Should be a good time. I should have taken Wednesday off. It's going to be a late night...

Just for M on this fine Monday morning, a play on words - dinosaur mummy's rock. Literally.

For those who watch American Idol (which I steadfastly do not), here's a little Where Are They Now, runner up edition - Jessica Sierra's next career could be as spokesperson for the "Faces of Meth" anti-drug campaign...or maybe a porn "actress". Oh, wait! She might already be at least one of those things. How sad. Schadenfreude, table for one please, party of me...

Also, there's a gecko in my office today. I welcome this little harbinger of good fortune and eater of small flying annoyances.

I was thinking of an unrelated thing

While searching for information about a website that I saw advertised during a recent lunch at Chipotle Mexican Grill downtown, I found something on their website that reminded me of my old boss. Not quite "clickity-click", but close. I didn't find what I was looking for, though.

I'm currently half watching a Harry Potter movie marathon on the ABC Family channel and browsing the selections on eMusic while chatting via IM. I'm very bored. Every time I get a weekend without my son, unless I had prearranged plans to do something interesting and/or fun, I get bored. Then I sit on my butt playing on the internet for a few hours.

Last night I went out to Borders to get some shopping done. I wandered around for over an hour and spent way more than I should have. Book stores are dangerous places for me, even when I'm shopping for other people. I did find the Office Space Box of Flair - it's full of buttons with quotes from the movie. Since I am the Milton of my office, you can be assured that I will be putting a few up on my bulletin board. After leaving Borders I met my husband at his regular weekend gig in time to join him and a couple friends for their Friday night ritual of going to the local wing place. We were waited on by two members of the restaurants's cadre of Bulgarian servers, who taught us a little of the language - "beer" is a pretty universal word, it would seem.

We're supposed to get the Christmas decorations out tomorow and start getting ready for the holiday. How can I conceivably do that when it's 80 degrees outside?

A few things of note:

• There's a book swap at work coming up. I need some advice on which book to bring. I'm currently torn between the Zombie Survival Guide and I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski. Opinions? Other suggestions?
• Currently I'm reading Food of the Gods by H.G. Wells and The God of Animals by Aryn Kyle.
• Looking forward to Sci-Fi's 3-part miniseries Tin Man starting tomorrow. I enjoyed Merlin and a couple of the others that Sci-Fi has done in the past. I tried watching King Arthur the other night and it was awful, really - a miserable retelling of the Arthurian tales and even Clive Owen couldn't redeem it for me.
• Shift work may cause cancer, according to some research that will probably be contradicted by some other study in six months. But until then - to my former employer I say: Thanks for the carcinoma! bastages...
• Why the internet is cool - images of space, one of my favorite mathematical sequences (a little hapahazardly explained here, but A for effort anyway) and a song by Tool:
  

(You can read more about the sequencing of the lyrics)

This is a plug.

I am a shameless schill...

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