The Back Porch

Microsuck

2006-11-04T05:16:18Z

Have I muttered lately about how much I hate this place?

I have managed to get the entire hallway to stop speaking to me. On the plus side, it's mighty quiet, and I'm able to get a lot done.

Space is tight here in Whinedoze Server. We're a minimum of two to an office these days. So when a window office opened up, C, my officemate, was very happy to be next on the seniority list for an office of his own. His revels were short lived, however, because John, da boss, told him the following Monday, immediately after he moved in, that he'd have to share an office. Party's over, I guess. C knew he could get along with me, and that I'm going to do my work, shut my piehole, and leave him in peace, so he invited me to move across the hall to the window office. "Sure, sounds great," I responded. The wheels were in motion, and John arranged the move with Facilities. This was two Tuesday mornings ago.

Ah, if only I'd known what a shitstorm this would brew.

L and T share an office down the hall. They were, up until the 1st of September, in the same writing group as I, but I jumped to another Whinedoze group. This is important, because the offices are assigned by group, meaning that there's no way on God's green earth L would have access to that office. It doesn't belong to her workgroup. That does not stop L from whining very publicly (yes, I can hear her, she's not doing this behind closed doors) to anyone who will listen, including my boss, that I don't deserve to be in that window office because I'm not high enough on the seniority totem pole, that she wants to know who made this decision, and she's not going to stop until she gets some answers, and waaaanh, it's not faaaaaaair!!! Just for reference, L isn't 22. She's 50. And this is the same woman who, some weeks earlier, decorated my entire office and bought me several small gifts at Cost Plus as a way of welcoming me back from vacation and wishing me Bon Voyage because I'd left her workgroup. WTF? Social whiplash? And how.

In the meantime, our old boss left the workgroup same time as I did. Her birthday was two Fridays ago, and we'd all agreed before she and I left the group that we still wanted to do something for her. L and T get a card and a gift. L walks the card up and down the hall for everyone to sign -- except me. Yes, that's right; I accepted an offer to move into a window office she's ineligible to use anyway, and that makes me dog $#it, unfit to sign the birthday card. Fine; I see how you are. I went out and got my own card and gift and said nothing to anyone about it. F#ck you bitches.

The next day, T comes into my office (old office, haven't moved yet) where a new employee has already been moved in to take over C's old desk. T reminds me that last week I said I was going to bake cookies. After all the clucking and screeching about how I don't deserve to share a window office, however, I was quite chilled on the notion of sharing a used piece of gum with these freaks, let alone baking them cookies. What's that the Bible says about casting one's pearls before swine? I said I'd reconsidered my offer. She asked "But why?" "Because you're on the South Beach Diet, there's enough trick-or-treat candy around here to put a herd of elephants into a diabetic coma, and frankly, some of you can buy your own cookies as far as I'm concerned." T looked shocked. Oh puhleez, sweetheart. "Who do you mean?" she said, looking hurt. "I'm talking about your officemate and her attempts to force me to give up the window office. I think she doesn't need any cookies from me." T says, incredibly, that she hadn't heard L complaining at all. (I know T was standing right next to her for some of it, and I reminded her of this.) "Oh, I don't think she meant anything by that." "Really? So she went to John, and her interim lead, and Stuart and a bunch of other people because she didn't really mean it? Sorry, but when you go bitching to my boss about something I've got, I think you really do mean it." T sighs. "Oh, you are overreacting." "Perhaps. Outcome is still the same though. No cookies." I turned back to my computer and kept working.

Last week was packed. Friday the 27th, I moved into the window office with C. Hardly saw T and L all week thanks to the crazy schedule, and we ignored each other. This week has been pretty much the same thing; glued to my desk and buried under ultra-last-minute Vista bugs.

Early Tuesday morning, ran into T in front of the restroom. She said "Hi." I said nothing and kept right on going. A few minutes later, she knocks on my door. She looks miserable. "Are you mad at me?" she says with a quiver in her lip. Sigh.

"Shut the door." Oh f*cking fountains of joy, because I haven't got enough to deal with right now, and I hadn't had any coffee yet, either. "I thought L's behavior the past couple of weeks was appalling," I said, "and I'm not really impressed with you for pretending you didn't hear her trying to hang me out to dry because of this office. This office!!"

I gestured to the window that everybody's so damned jealous of, the window that looks out on a splendid view of a brick wall with a sliver of 520 in the background. I gestured to the fact that I sit back to the window anyway, because the office is small and has only one network port, and that's the only way we could negotiate two desks, chairs, and shelving units. "Look at this, T. Look at me sitting with my back to the window that faces Jay (a manager's office window) over there picking his nose, and the beautiful detritus lodged under 520. Was this worth the colossal stink L made? Was it worth forbidding me from signing D's birthday card?"

T looked like she was nearing full-on blubber. "I'm not mad at you, T," I said with fatigue. "I thought the disloyalty sucked, and I thought it was odd that you couldn't have known about all the shit-stirring L was doing, but you weren't the one doing it." She hugged me fiercely. "Ohhh, I love you, I wouldn't try to hurt you deliberately, honestly. L, too, she's a very sweet person, she can tell you're mad at her but she has no idea why, really she doesn't."

WTF? L whined her way through every office on this floor about me moving into this office, most of the time within my earshot, and she has no clue that crap might have, oh I dunno, been poorly received by me? No clue, honestly? "Look, T, one of the valuable lessons of my career has been to get away from and stay away from sh!t-stirrers. L was seriously into the sh!t-stirring these last weeks. I didn't want anything to do with her."

T sighed. "I just want things to go back to the way they were. I want to all be able to go to lunch again. Can't you talk to L? Really, she has no idea she did anything wrong."

Gaddamnitofeckinhell. "All right, I'll talk to her. But not this week. It's nuts, and I'm buried."

Peace at last. Until John's team meeting a couple hours later. I should have checked my horoscope for land mines, that's what.

John's team is unfortunately composed of sad, arrested Ren-Faire and Sci-Fi-Con misfits (oh, there's no irony. I belong here, I know it). No fewer than half the team is afflicted with a disorder that forces them to stand in your office door and ramble on eternally, without noticing your fidgeting, your intent glances at your watch, the fact that you've dropped off to sleep, the fact that you've turned around and have actually resumed typing, the fact that you've left the office, etc. We have people who speak Klingon on this team. Enough said.

Poor John is trying to get control of the meeting and work through the actually brief team meeting agenda, but the freaks are knocking him down and taking his lunch money. J (whom some of you may recall as "the farter" from an earlier journal post) and S won't STFU. J, S and the new girl are jabbering away about Redmond restaurants. Who gizzafuk, girls? Can we just get through this and get out of here? Some of us have work to do! John's trying to get us to give oral status reports, and J just keeps talking right over everybody about entirely OT crap. We finally run out of time -- amazing, because the meeting was only supposed to run 20 minutes. But now we're at 57 minutes, and the group next registered for the conference room is tapping the door. I'm up, and I'm trying to give my status report, but every time I open my mouth, J adds some totally f*cking stupid oblique reference to elaborate on the last f*cking stupid completely oblique reference she made. Finally, after several false starts, I turned to her, and said in a tone that let her know my next step was euthanasia, "Can you let me talk, please?" I think the worst of it was everybody cracked up, except for J. And now J is going to eat a worm and die, because (1) I told her to shut up, basically, and (2) everybody laughed, and she perceives that as everybody laughed at her.

So my name is mud. J slams her door whenever she sees me, which isn't often, fortunately, because I'm stuck in here in UNIX Interop Documentation Hell and don't get out much. T at least comes around for the cartload of leftover trick-or-treat candy we've got in our office, and L skulks past me like a whipped dog. You can all go to Hell by the fastest transport available, as far as I'm concerned.

So now I've got to apologize to everyone because everyone's pweshus widdle feelings are hurt. "J, I'm so sorry I tried to get you to be quiet when you were talking about totally OT BS the whole meeting while I was trying to give my status report. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." "L, I'm so sorry I got pissed at you for being a sh!t-stirring whiny menopausal assblossom and telling everyone in the building I don't deserve a window office, and then not allowing me to sign our old boss' birthday card. I'm so sorry I quit speaking to you, but I gotta tell you, trust me sweetheart, it would have hurt a lot more if I had spoken to you."

Only 30 more years to retirement. Tick. Tock.

Not all the rotten fruit comes from trees

2006-08-14T22:12:05Z

This weekend, went to Eastern WA with friend Christina, drove around hitting all the farmers' markets and fruit stands. We loaded up the car with fresh peaches, cherries, bundles of onions and beets, corn, eggplant, cantaloupe, Yukon Gold potatoes, Swiss chard, and raspberries. After a long, hot day touring Douglas and Chelan counties, we settled into our hotel in Wenatchee, had a decent dinner, homemade pie, and decided to relax in the hotel's swimming pool and hot tub.

Good lawdy, will I ever learn? I love swimming, but I should just stay away from public pools, period. They are the most effective known magnets for inconsiderate, underevolved breeders and spawn. I guess I figured that because I had a friend with me this time, we'd be too busy socializing to notice the enfant terribes of others. Not so, unfortunately.

I flailed around in the pool for a while. Christina was in the hot tub. About 9 p.m., I decide to get out of the rather cold pool and join Christina in the hot tub. The only other company we had at that point was an indifferent Trailer Trash Barbie seated over in the corner, as far away from the pool as one could get, and her two kids in the pool, boy 5, girl 9.

Shortly after I joined Christina in the hot tub, the 5-year-old boy climbed out of the pool and jumped in with us. He enjoyed this so much he did it repeatedly, on auto-loop: climb out of hot tub, cannonball right back in. A few of these, and Christina (who is a mother herself) and I'd both had it. Christina whispered to me that the rules placard behind us clearly stated that children under six were disallowed in the hot tub. My personal feeling is that hot tubs are not for kids, period. And armed with the rules, I prepared for battle:

"Excuse me, young fella, how old are you?"
"I'm FIVE!" Spluttering water from his most recent dive, he held up his whole hand in confirmation.
"That's very nice. Unfortunately, that means you can't be in the hot tub, because the rules here say that children under six are not allowed in the hot tub."

Junior stared at us in shock, and his lip quivered. He started blubbering. Clearly, he was unused to being denied anything. He jumped out of the hot tub and ran over to his mother, shrieking that he wasn't allowed in the hot tub.

I waited for his handler to come barreling over from the chair in the corner where she was slouched, and tell us what mean, horrible bitches we were and that he wasn't bothering anybody and how dare we attempt to discipline her child. But no. She remained where she was. We heard nothing from her, except that she called over the older child, and whispered something to her. The older child ran over to the hot tub and stood facing us, reading the rules placard carefully. Then she ran over to her mother and reported what she'd read. Trailer Queen still didn't rise, speak to us, or even look at us. She whispered something back to the girl, and the girl sped back over to the hot tub and jumped in. She looked at us with a big shiteatin' grin, and announced, "I'm NINE, so I can be here if I WANT!"

Christina and I completely ignored her, no eye contact or anything. We continued our intensive discussion about cosmetics and facial moisturizers. Frustrated that she wasn't the center of attention, li'l missy quickly got out of the hot tub, and the three of them left. Ahh. We had the whole place all to ourselves. Very relaxing. Oh, but wait.

A few minutes later, Beer-Gutted NASCAR Dad in Too-Short Muscle Tank throws open the door to the pool area, bellowing. "Hey, are you two the Pool Police?"

"Wha-a-at?" At first, Christina and I didn't make the connection. He repeated his bellowing. "Are you two bitches the Pool Police? Because you made my son cry! That's right! He's upstairs crying because you two thought you were too good for him to share your hot tub! I don't see where you two fat bitches own this hot tub and have a right to kick him out! You made him cry! You leave my family alone!!"

And I, these days, this close to going postal, was ready for a fight. Christina was muttering "don't engage him, just ignore him, don't even look at him," but I didn't take her advice. "Why don't you read the rules yourself, asshole, or get your daughter to read them for you if you can't read? It says 'no kids under 6.'" I thumbed at the placard. "If you have an issue with the CLEARLY-POSTED rules, you need to take it to the manager, not us. Now fuck off and leave us alone, Homer, before WE call the manager. Nobody was supervising your stupid kid. If your illiterate wife can't fucking read the rules, it's her problem, not ours."

"Yeah? Yeah? Well maybe you bitches should police YOURSELVES and not my son! It also says there's a 15-minute limit on being in the hot tub and you've been in there WAAY longer than that!" He just kept shouting that, over and over. "Police yourselves! Don't you dare discipline my kids!"

Actually not true. I hopped in at 9, and it was 9:10. I'd only been in there ten minutes. Christina had been in there far longer. But the rules didn't forbid a longer session than 15 minutes. They only suggested people not spend longer than 15 minutes in there if the heat and jets were on. Neither were on.

Beer Gut finally backed out of the pool area, jabbing his finger at us, bellowing "never talk to my family again! Police yourselves, bitches! You will never talk to my family again!" (Gee, you PROMISE? Really?) We saw him walk by the pool area a couple more times, pointing at us through the windows and mouthing some threat. I flipped him off in stereo. "Don't even look, don't even make eye contact," muttered Christina, studiously facing the water. Beer Gut stuck his head in again a couple minutes later, yelling at us "Get out of the hot tub now, you bitches! Or I will tell the management!" I yelled back, "Tell the management what? Why don't you come make us get out, big boy?" He jabbed his fingers at us again, pulled out of the door, paced back and forth in front of the windows some more, stuck his head in once again and yelled something unintelligible (neither Christina or I caught what he said), then disappeared.

I couldn't let go of it. My adrenaline was pumping. On some level, I'd sized up this asshole and realized that he'd backed down. He figured out we weren't scared of him, that he couldn't just command us, and he'd exposed his weak underbeerbelly in doing so. I tried to shake it off when we got back upstairs, watching TV, flipping through magazines, talking to Christina. Nothing worked. I could still sense the attacker's vulnerability and fear of us, and my body was still ready to rumble, long after bedtime. Ugh.

The next morning, as we were checking out, we looked through the windows of the pool area and saw all of them sitting in the hot tub, Assclown Beer Gut included. With the five-year-old, naturally. But now they were happily joined by another breeding moocow, bobbing a baby in diapers up and down in the tub, with a perhaps two-year-old climbing around on her. I guess we're all too special for the rules!

Got no love lost for Trailer Queen, running to get her man to fight her battles, either. What's up with that? Not that I would have enjoyed verbal combat with her, either, but what is this, 1900? You can't even come over and read the hot tub rules yourself? You send over first your daughter, and then your man, to do your wetwork for you? I can't help but find her passivity contemptible.

Disposable Dogs

2006-06-06T21:38:57Z

For the third time this week (eyeroll) my friend in Hawaii e-mailed me family photos. Except these aren't of her new baby or the baby's older brother. These are of the family dogs, Tetsu, and a new American Bulldog puppy they've acquired, Gigi. Of course, I enjoy pet photos much more than baby photos, but someone was missing: Po'o, the friendly, sweet, adorable, honey-colored mutt they've had for more than 10 years. Shit.

I responded; I complimented her new puppy, but I had to ask: where's Po'o? "We put Po'o to sleep," she said. "It was very sad; I was bawling when I let go of the leash." Was Po'o ill? Doesn't say.

The last time they put a dog to sleep, it was a 10-year-old Tosa Inu (Japanese mastiff) just like Tetsu, and they put the dog down, in her own words, because the dog was getting old and slowing down, and they didn't want to deal with other problems as the dog aged. In Po'o's case, I'm just inferring that they put the dog to sleep simply because it was "getting old," but she did not mention an illness.

I'm really smarting from this. I only saw Po'o every couple of years or so, but he was so lively, playful, and ready for hugs and kisses, every time I'd see him. I last saw Po'o on Halloween 2005, and he ran right up to me for a tummy rub, tail-a-waggin'. Her parents had certainly better hope this isn't her philosophy when dealing with their own aging process. I realize as I snark, however, that she'd never deal with her family members the same way. Human life is far too valuable to discard like furniture, in her estimation. She simply does not regard her pets as family; they regard their dogs as more of a yard accessory.

Plus, in her e-mail, she asked me the ever-obnoxious "so, is there a man in your life?" question, to which no other answer but "yes, I'm going to pursue the One True Path of marriage and childrearing, just like you!" could ever elicit anything but sympathetic clucks. I can describe my life in the most exciting of terms, exaggerated or not, and it would be only a pathetic diary of arrested loserdom in her view. We're talking about a family with an "I'm My Kids' Mom -- Dr. Laura Schlesinger" license plate frame, after all.

Train. Wreck.

2006-05-30T22:28:40Z

The long weekend is over, but I feel like I hardly got any R&R at all. Saturday night, my dad brought over my sister and her boyfriend of 2+ years, Matt. We all had a nice dinner; the weather cooperated just long enough to get chicken skewers, Tofurkey kielbasa, and veggies grilled outside. Then the deluge resumed.

Matt's a cute fellow; looks like a slightly smaller, slim version of Matthew Broderick. He and my sister are both raging Magic card game nerds, which is how they met. Apparently, they are old-timers in a Magic online community, and they also met up at several tournaments and regional games. And now they have a long-distance thing, since she's in Maryland and he's in Canada. One thing's clear: neither of them, though ostensibly sentient and polite, have a single thought for anyone or anything but themselves and their own needs right at that moment. Gregarious Matt chattered enthusiastically away for hours about the call center job he'd recently quit, without expressing a mustard seed's worth of interest in how either my dad or I live or what we enjoy. Neither of them once offered to help with dinner, dishes, cleanup, etc. I did, however, on occasion, hear snarky comments about my music CDs, clothes hanging in my closet, etc. Ok, like WTF?

Sunday, we piled into the car early in the morning and slogged through hours of miserable weather to tour the North Cascades. Matt and my sister both sat in the back the whole trip; I was the chauffeur. The rain let up by the time we got to Newhalem, so we were able to get out and walk City Light's delightful nature trail along the Skagit River. The two of them were (yeesh, get a room) all over each other, so I tried to stay a few steps ahead. As we finished the trail and were ready to cross the footbridge across the river to return to the car, my sister asked if we could go once more around, or at least as far as a large, hollowed-out red cedar about 1/3 of the way through the trail. When we arrived at the tree, the two of them wedged themselves inside for several minutes. I wandered around trying to get out of earshot while they macked on each other. When they came out, my sister was sniffling and wiping her eyes. I turned to Matt, and asked, "What did you do, yank her out of there too hard?" "No," she said. "He gave me this." She held up her left hand; on it was an ornate gold ring with three rows of small diamonds. "We're engaged!"

"Well, this is an heirloom my mom let me borrow," said Matt coyly, "but I'm having one made for her with a star sapphire (because her name's Starr)." I wondered how an between-jobs call center tech affords an engagement ring, but my new policy with respect to my sister's entire life is Keep Your F*ckin' Mouth Shut, which seems to be the only way to maintain peace. I congratulated the two of them and fawned over the ring, although she won't get to keep it (it's an heirloom from Iran, which is where Matt's grandparents are from). We took some pictures to memorialize the moment (God help them), and hit the road once more.

The weather turned spectacular and springlike as we descended into Okanogan County. Eastern WA typically dries out to an austere brown in the summer, but it's still lush and green this time of year, with idyllic farms stretched along the crystalline rush of the Methow River. I like Winthrop, but I guess I'm just corny that way, because Matt and Starr were snarking about the "cheesy" frontier-town storefronts and Wild West graphics. It was very crowded with tourists, and there were lots of cruisers in their monster trucks blaring music. We got ice cream waffle cones. Neither Matt nor Starr had any interest in shopping, so we looked around for a decent meal. This is when my sister turned into VegZilla: "If I can't find anything to eat," she said, "we're getting back in the car, turning right around, and heading for Seattle." Yes, she actually said this.

There were restaurants with pizza, calzones, pasta, gardenburgers, and some tasty-sounding vegetarian appetizers like fried portobello mushrooms, but she wanted Indian or Asian food, like she does every goddamned meal. ("I won't eat unhealthy fried food," she declares, after bingeing the entire car ride on a bag of chocolates that my mother gave her Saturday. F*ckin hell, whatever.) I said, "You're not going to find that out here in the sticks." Oh, here it comes. "Then we're heading back," she snapped. "Um, no, we're not," I said. "This is not a dietary requirement. This is your personal choice. You cannot use your personal choice to declare like the Queen of Sheba that Matt and I must skip meals, that's bullshit. You can't dictate to us that we gotta wait until 10 p.m. for our next meal, because that's how long it is back to town. You'll either find something to eat here or you'll find something to do while Matt and I get a meal, because we're hungry and I ain't waiting until no 10 at night when all I've had all day is cereal before we left the house!"

So we went into a decent little bar and grill (I've been in this one before), and Starr pouted and huffed, and actually gave the waitress the "talk to the hand" when she asked if we were ready to order. Yeah, great way to get the kitchen crew to piss on our food, dumbass. When the waitress returned a couple of minutes later (visibly on the defensive from the treatment she received earlier), my sister demanded a hot chocolate. "I'll check in the bar," said the waitress, "but we might be out." "Yes, you'd better verify that," said my sister with authority. Yikes, I can taste the urine in my food already. Apart from a hot chocolate, I was supposed to feel bad that all she could snap at the waitress for was "a small green salad with no dressing." Well, Matt and I both called her bluff. He enjoyed every last morsel of a monster plate of chicken-fried steak with sausage gravy and all the trimmings, and I had a decent plate of beer-battered halibut & salad. She was disappointed that no one felt sorry for her, denied themselves for her sake, or cooed over her pathetic little plate of greens (that she later supplemented with an entire huckleberry-filled chocolate bar, that neither of them offered to share with me, on the trip home.) Waaah. Another guilt trip foiled. Her trips have the hallmark of the Master (our mother), on them, though. Too bad, I'm about fifteen years past riding the guilt train with either of you bitches.

Matt got her to snap out of it, finally, so on the road home they seemed genuinely excited about the breathtaking alpine scenery. I have the dubious sense that Matt doesn't really understand that as her husband, he's going to have to make mollifying her insane, manipulative, hostile, scorched-earth ass a full-time job. I hope that's something he enjoys, because he'll get to do a lot of it. He seems like a nice guy, if a little self-oriented, and I hope she doesn't chew him up, spit him out, and leave him for dead. I played chauffeur until we got back to I-5, while the two of them giggled and cooed in the back seat and shared Ubernerd jokes about the card game circuit. It's beautiful country, though, and the rain let up until dark. Perhaps owing to the crappy weather, the roads were empty. No traffic except for us, until we got back to Burlington.

I am glad she's finally happy. She's had what I'd call a joyless life, up until this point. My entirely self-serving, misery-loving, and anti-maternal mother has fed off her like a parasite for decades, telling her she'd be a failure living in the gutter if she pursued classical studies, and goading her into medical school so Starr could be a "rich doctor" and support her worthless ass. (That scheme backfired; Starr dropped out of her residency several years ago and can't seem to get back in, not even to programs for the worst schools. Looks like she's stuck being a penniless researcher working on thin grants and stipends, at least for the foreseeable future.) Her schoolfellows from kindergarten onward tortured and bullied her, while school administrators and teachers looked the other way and addressed her pleas for defense as if these violations were entirely imaginary. She often speaks as though the entire world is out to get her and everybody's against her, and I've seen times when they really were. She's seriously damaged, and if anybody needs to have someone love her and want to be with her, it's she.

I don't see how this is going to work, or last very long, and it saddens me, but I'm just going to have to stand back and watch. She doesn't want advice or interference, per usual. I think she needs some serious help before she can tie herself to someone else for life (I think she's bulimic, for one thing, based on certain observations I've made whenever she's visited me) but you can't even bring that up with her. My dad did not even feign joy at their announcement last night when I dropped them off at his house. His first question was to me: "How long have you known about this?" "Less than 24 hours," I said. "It's not my news to tell."

Mom, on the other hand, is going to just lap this up. Unfortunately, I can also see her trying to sabotage the event if things don't go exactly her way. I look forward to her reminding me that if I weren't a "hideous, closet lesbian, 300-lb backstabber like your Aunt Rachel, you might be able to get yourself a man, too." And she oughtta know; she was married four times, herself. Also look forward to her drunken speeches and other attempts to seek attention at the actual blessed event. Ahhh. Fasten your seat belts, everyone; it's going to be a bumpy ride.

Two! Four! Six! Eight! Time for you to med-i-cate!

2006-05-19T20:28:08Z

Boss rant. Not the first, and certainly won't be the last.

My boss sends out a mail this morning with our "new editing guidelines and procedure." Lots of hoops to jump through in there, and some of them seem kinda like make-work bureaucratic BS, so I was glad to see that she solicited "questions/concerns/comments" at the bottom. I took a good half hour going through the procedure and reporting back to her my analysis of where we could cut the crap.

Her response: "Oh, that's mandatory. So is that. That too. You have to do that. No, I like it the old way better." Lovely. So here's a bit of time-saving advice: don't ask for "questions/concerns/comments" if you don't really want them, you attention-deficit slag.

She's been nudging me in the ribs since Tuesday about setting up a "movie day" to go see "Da Vinci Code." "Just send out a Schedule Plus for all my direct reports. Oh, we have to go see this movie on Friday! Have to have to!" I set up the movie for 12:45 today. 11:45 rolls around, and we're milling around in the hall, waiting for her, since she jumped up and down promising to drive. Finally, she pokes her head out her office door. "Oh, I can't go; I've got a meeting at 2. You guys want to do it Monday?" Sound of the assembled group shuffling off back to their desks, muttering "yeah, I guess, whatever."

Um, no, actually, I want to do it today, since I already passed on another commitment to do this. F*ckin' GRRR!

Only 30 more years to retirement. Lordamighty.

Nutty McNutterson's Weather Report

2006-05-18T18:46:06Z

Pat Robertson, America's Very Own Jihadist

So, who's to blame this time, Patty? Feminists? Homos? Abortionists? Evil, godless, horny singles, rutting like bunnies without consequences? Hollywood? Hugo Chavez? Do tell us whose name is written all over Apocalypse 2006.

MediScrewed

2006-05-17T22:49:09Z

Part D for Die Already, It's Cheaper

Between this and other news bites I've read today, I'm just ready to cry.

I think about all the people I know (i.e. Dad) who worked hard all their lives so some corrupt, rock-stupid bully in the White House could gang up on them with all his rich bully-buddies and rob them at gunpoint when they're frail and vulnerable.

The other night on PBS I was watching Eleanor Roosevelt's biography, and then, I really did cry. All these carefully-crafted protections by the brilliant, trailblazing minds of the Roosevelt administration: protections against monopolies, against corporate fraud, against poverty, against banking abuses, against workforce exploitation, against the seizure of public property -- the aggregate of which built a nation with the highest standard of living in the world -- all reduced to rubble within less than a decade by a goon squad of boardroom billionaires and their foppish prince.

There's a hellfire-tinged hypocrisy in mouthing odes to "market-based solutions" and "free markets" while you're getting your cronies to sign legislation for you that prevents consumers from realizing better prices using those same free markets. And every one of big pharma's broken-record talking points, from "socialized medicine means you can only buy old drugs" to "countries like Canada aren't paying the full cost of developing a drug" is a lie. A bald-faced lie.

"The Center for Drug Development at Tufts University studied forty-six new drugs approved by the United States in 1985 and 1986 and found that 72 percent were available on average 5.5 years earlier in foreign markets."

Medicine should not be a status symbol, an accessory of cachet. The drawling fool in our White House enjoys hearing himself talk about moral living. Well, here's some talk about morality: it is a moral evil to extort money from people for medicines they need.

Quick century check, please

2006-05-17T19:30:42Z

@#$%ing unbelievable. What century is this, again?

Missouri town denies unmarried couples permit -- and housing

Habitat for Some Humanity

2006-05-17T00:40:20Z

This Thursday, the 20 or so people in my second-level workgroup have arranged a full day of volunteering at a Habitat for Humanity housing site. I quietly ignored and deleted all the e-mails about this and deflected casual inquiries into whether I was attending or not. I don't and won't support HfH and I just didn't want to discuss it with people.

This afternoon, during my weekly one-on-one with the boss lady, she confided that she'd signed up for the HfH volunteer day but is now looking for a way to get out of it. "I could do that if I could say one of my team had a crisis I had to stay for...heh heh, don't you have some sort of crisis or something? Oh, wait, you're going too, aren't you? Of course you are, you always do Day of Caring stuff. Everybody's going."

"Nupe. Not this time. Sorry, wish I had some sort of three-alarm for ya, but I'm rock-solid for the next week."

"So are you going, then?"

"No."

"OMG! Why not? Quick, tell me your excuse and I'll use it."

Hoo boy. "I don't think you can use this one. It's all political. I don't support HfH."

She started hyperventilating, but at least with curiousity and not indignance. "Seriously?!? Oh, I want to hear this. Good, this means I don't have to go either." (Hanh? What's her drama? This isn't compulsory, right? Nobody HAS to go.)

So I told her. HfH builds houses for people with minor children, and only for people with minor children. Poor families who haven't bred don't get so much as a stick of wood from them. Although I don't want to let people live in the streets, I don't think people are entitled to single-family homes. I can certainly see where there'd be a thrill for some poor trailermuffin and her kids to have their very own tract home, but I still don't think people are entitled to a home just because they've had kids. Generally speaking, I avoid charities that serve only families with kids.

I grew up poor, living in apartments of widely varying conditions, until I was 27 years old. It didn't stunt my childhood to live in apartments. In fact, I'd say there were many benefits. Without a backyard, my sister and I were taken to local parks, where we played and made friends with children from every walk of life, from every racial and ethnic background imaginable. And now that I live in a single-family home in Suburbia, I have to report that the contrast between the sense of community and neighborhood I had in inner-city apartments and that I get from my isolationist, suspicious, predatory, ignorant "cast of Deliverance" neighbors is like night and day. Apartment life in the city was pretty damn rich, I'd have to say. Everything was within walking distance, and there were other kids to play with all over the building. My sister and I were rolling pakora dough with the Indian kids upstairs when we were three and four. I just don't believe that apartment living on its face causes kids to suffer; nothing in my experience points to apartment life as a tool of oppression.

And to my surprise, after I'd outed my reasons to my boss, she agreed. She grew up in Queens, and their family lived in apartments, too. Naturally, there are shitty slums in Queens (and we've got some, too). But there just plain isn't land there to build new homes for everyone; New Yorkers have to live in much denser housing, that's just the way it is. Instead of building new houses, it seems to her (and to me) more prudent that HfH should take that money and make apartment living more pleasant for the poor: safer, cleaner, more secure, better climate-controlled, better lit, soundproof, more convenient to destinations like schools, doctors' offices, grocery stores, etc.

Also, how does having a house break the oft-discussed "cycle of poverty," exactly? Doesn't it just create a whole new set of potential expenses that the residents never had the money for to begin with? How does home ownership make people who rack up debt and spend beyond their means better with money? How does sticking someone waaaay out in the burbs, on the land that HfH is able to afford, improve their accessibility to jobs, schools, etc.? Seems to me there's some "American Dream" BS here that hasn't been entirely thought through.

My boss did also mention that another reason she was lukewarm on the HfH outing was that she was afraid some idiot who didn't know what they were doing might drop a hammer on her from above, and then I had to remind her again that I wasn't going.

gavottine @ 2006-05-10T16:35:00

2006-05-10T23:56:56Z

New 'Anti-Abortion Pill' Kills Mother, Leaves Fetus Alive

A beautiful moment from the Onion. I wonder how many people in America would think it's a real news item, and think "well, it's about time."

ITMFA. It'll never happen, but the buttons are worthy.

gavottine @ 2006-05-10T15:54:00

2006-05-10T22:56:59Z

"Sweet shit," indeed.

Tippling with Tots!

I'm not getting how the sprogs are allowed...I thought WA state law was 21 and over only in bars.

Tuning the world's smallest violin

2006-05-10T19:35:10Z

WinServ team sent out a mail today to say that Halliburton is having trouble beta-testing our stuff. How many times in the release notes does it say "unattended installation is not supported in this release," anyway? Only three?

Awww. Ain't that a shame. RTFM, people.

Also, Halliburton's looking for us to pony up some money so they can send more tech goons from Texas to an Engineering Excellence roundtable up here.

Hello? Corporate welfare much? How much in profits did you warmongering parasites pull down last year, and you're telling us you don't have the budget to send your guys up here and you want us to host you? Put down the crack pipe.

gavottine @ 2006-05-05T12:04:00

2006-05-05T19:14:19Z

J's been out sick all week. I guess it was pretty serious; she lost her voice for four days, and had to go to the doctor to get some antibiotics and Jack Daniel's Cough Remedy.

So why is she in my office every hour chit-chatting? I'm in a social mood, I admit it; but I sure don't want what she's got! I thought it was bad when she farted; I guess it's a lot worse when she's coughing.

"*kaff kaff* been sick all week. Yeah *kaff* hope you don't get it! *kaff*"
"Yeah, me too, J. Gosh, you sound awful. You should go home as soon as you can." scooting chair further and further back

This morning, my boss came in here talking about going for Mexican food today. I said, "sounds great, I can drive, if you want." Now she and the TermServ writers are all gone. Hello, forget somebody, hello? I kept waiting for her to come back and say, "OK, we're going," but I guess I really am chopped liver. Fine, I see how y'are. I'll go to Taco del Mar all by myself then, screw you people.

MoveOn, Mommies! Waaay wrong Inbox!

2006-05-05T02:58:08Z

I generally support most of MoveOn's causes, but I'm definitely not amused with how they allow just about any wingnut with a cause and a soapbox access to their mailing lists. Today, they sent out the Motherhood Manifesto (I gag just typing it), which, as one might guess, is all about securing breeding subsidies, breeder workplace entitlements and inequities, and mommy comp for those who want to stay home with the crotchlings.

This is about where I take off my Progressive hat and snap on something not quite so rosily kum-ba-ya, shall we say.

So I just let the mommies have it. I finally found their feedback collector form, and I flamed away. Of course, that wasn't very smart or mature of me, but for some reason, it provides a release. Sue me.

Subject: Just because I'm a MoveOn member doesn't mean I want your population-bloating breeder subsidy shill in my mailbox

I consider your pro-breeding spam to everyone on the MoveOn mailing list an abuse of my privacy, and I'm not happy about it.

I'm a progressive. I support immediate withdrawal from Iraq; impeachment of the disgraceful, corrupt, and woefully unqualified liar in the White House; tough environmental standards that punish polluters, discourage SUV ownership, and promote the adoption of clean energy technology; tough penalties for parasitic and corrupt corporations that kill our jobs and our standard of living in the name of "shareholder value"; single-payer healthcare; the restoration of the Bill of Rights; free higher education; wholly unrestricted abortion rights, and a galvanization of the separation between church and state.

But this doesn't mean I support ceding tax money and First Amendment freedoms to those unimaginative twats who have made the number one most selfish and environmentally destructive decision one person can make: the choice to bring yet more resource-sucking, landfill-choking human predators into a world already groaning under the weight of 6.4 billion destroyers.

What part of depleted fisheries, reduced fertility at all levels of the food chain from environmental contaminants, accelerated global warming, global dimming, 100-year hurricanes every year, melted glaciers, scarce forests, sharp declines in biodiversity, fresh water shortages, peak oil, spreading desertification and soil erosion, accelerated wildlife extinction rates, factory-farming-related pandemics (such as bird flu and mad cow disease), drug-resistant superbugs, ballooning rates of allergies and asthma, and the very real potential of wars over limited resources, don't you get? What is it about this that's hard for you? "Ohhh, but I want a baaaayyyybeeee." Your reproductive whims don't entitle you to jack, any more than my hobbies and personal interests entitle me to taxpayer support. You've each done the equivalent of buying a fleet of little fleshy Hummers. You can blow your Manifesto out your fertile and selfish asses.

So you breed thoughtlessly, and spam tens of thousands of people, in the sentimental and misguided assumption that you're doing us such a huge favor by grunting your ravenous little consumers out that we need to compensate you for your utter selfishness? We need to preserve your jobs for you, and violate the Constitution to censor our culture for you, and pay you to stay home to wipe up strained bananas and pack landfills with diapers? Where's my scuba-diving pay? How about my volunteering pay? Or my gardening pay? Where's my manifesto, huh? Where's my six-month-mandatory "backpacking leave" or "home remodel leave?" Where are my ridiculously inflated tax credits and subsidies for traveling?

"Oh, but our chyyyldrunnn are the FYYOOOOTURE!! They'll contribute to your Social Security when you're old! They'll take care of you!" Bullshit. Social Security is toast. It won't survive the boomers; it may not even help half of them. Even the progressive press (economist Paul Krugman, et al) agrees. And even if SS survived, assuming it provided even a usable monthly sum, we have plenty of evidence that an economy based on endless growth, on robbing the future to pay for the past, is the nail in the coffin of humanity's time on earth. Measuring human progress exclusively in terms of economic growth and future workforce size is not only illogical, but renders a dangerously incomplete and skewed picture of our expected global standard of living. You are fucking us over, and those of us with better reading comprehension are not fooled by your rosy "growth is good" fallacies.

And, needless to say, not all of your precious little replicants turn out to be thoughtful, productive, compassionate, and responsible members of society. We have absolutely no guarantees that you're doing a good job of parenting, for all this demand for perks and subsidies. Your kids have just as much chance of winding up in prison or otherwise leeching from the system, as they do of contributing to our future government checks or paying regular visits to Granny's nursing home. There's no quid pro quo or metrics on how you're doing as mommies; we don't get to assess your work and adjust your pay accordingly; there's only your hand out, screeching for benefits for something you chose to do of your own free will that doesn't benefit us in the least.

I will never, ever support discrimination in the workplace that favors you selfish, breeding hags over women who have made the smart, considerate, and ecologically responsible choice not to have children. I will never support discrimination that provides you better pay and benefits for less work, simply because you've made the personal decision (without consulting your employer or anybody else) to fill your life and our poor planet with little parasites. I will never believe that the Earth-frying, boring little hobby you choose because you're too stupid to think of a more meaningful legacy constitutes "work" that deserves any kind of compensation or benefits. In fact, I'd support the levy of hefty taxes against parents for the additional infrastructure and burden on publicly-owned resources that their decision to replicate costs the rest of us and the environment.

Do not ever send me your f*cking mindless breeder greedy-mommy douche-drip again. Ever. If you don't want to see screeds like this in your Inbox, then for f*ck's sake, don't spam mine.

The whole idea of "classifieds" seems to be lost on these people

2006-05-04T01:21:56Z

I did a quick scan this afternoon of the Evil M'Pire Classifieds, looking for a fellow employee who might be selling an old beater of a digital camera that I could send to my friend Celeste's oldest son. The experience has taught me that a large number of my co-workers really need to get a clue.

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT: When you're selling used or second-hand goods, no matter how pristine their condition, it's generally ill advised to ask the original retail sticker price for said items, or heaven forbid, even more.

Because I'm a collector, I took a side trip through the list of items for sale under the "Collectibles" header. Oy vey's mir. A collection of Disney Princess porcelain dolls -- not MIB or NRFB, mind you, but which have been removed from packaging, displayed, and perhaps even played with -- $20 each. On eBay, said dolls are going for $30 NRFB. EBay's also selling the same red Kate Spade purse, tags on, for $175 (Buy It Now price) that one of my poor, benighted co-workers is attempting to peddle for $200, no tags. Over in the Home and Garden Department, someone's selling a pair of large ornamental plastic flower planters for $20 each. (I think you can actually get these at McClendon's brand new for $14.99.) And there's a USED lawnmower for sale...for $300. Jeebus grits, if that's the used price, I'd hate to see whatcha got it for NEW.

Also, WTF is wrong with people? You work for the most ubiquitous and aggressively competitive technology company in the world, and you can't figure out that when you're selling stuff online, you probably need a PICTURE up there? Hello? Anybody home? Wonder why your ad's been up there since last November with no takers?

As for cameras, I found an old Olympus 1.3 megapixel that would have been perfect, had it not been for the $150 price tag. Oh, and a 2.5 megapixel Nikon for $200. Hoo boy. Get real already!

To be fair, not all of them are this clueless. There's also a 3-year-old lawnmower that someone's selling for $50. This guy seems to get it. So does the guy selling the electric leaf blower for $75. Classified ads -- not a profit center, people!

If you unbend a paper clip and poke it in your leg really hard under your desk...

2006-04-22T01:37:31Z

...it can stop you from busting out laughing.

Across-the-hall neighbor, J, is a nice person. Generous and generally easygoing. But lacking in social skills, most notably the ability to read when it's time for her to wrap it up, shut her piehole, get back to her own office, and let you get back to work. And, also notably, lacking either the sphincter control required to prevent random farting, or the social IQ possessed by most people that not all places and situations are fart-safe.

Because of J's unorthodox and somewhat painfully asphyxiating habit of coming across the hall to pollute our office with often audible farts while she's yammering on, C (my officemate and J's editor), has started stocking his bookshelf with cans of Febreze air spray.

The paperclip laugh-suppressant really came in handy about an hour ago when J was here shooting the breeze with us about her extensive plans to purchase a timeshare. C is now trained that whenever J comes in, C seizes one of his Febreze cans and puts it on his knee where J can't see it, finger ready at the trigger. The following sequence of sounds and smells ensues:

Brrrt! (Audible fart from J)

Sssssst! (C immediately counters with a surreptitious blast of Febreze from under his desk)

Foul stink reaches my desk and smarts the eyes, threatens wear warranty on my mascara

Faux-herbal-floral scent slams into the nebulous stink and stomps it down

Ppppbbpppbb! (Slightly more languid fart from J)

Ssst SsSSST! (Two enthusiastic, staccato bursts of aerosol from C's desk)

Faint whiff of rotten poultry followed by determined counterassault of institutional verbena.

Oxygen has been restored to the office, and J is finally gone. Now I can laugh. Fookinail.

America's Great Minds

2006-04-21T17:33:22Z

Today's Dear Abby offers a rich slice of the deep thoughts of America's informationally-challenged McChristians:

DEAR ABBY: My husband, "Ron," and I are at odds over parenting our 7-year-old son, "Brett." My husband is very domestic. He cooks like a world-class chef and does more housework than any man I know of. I have read Dr. James Dobson's books on family. He clearly states that a father should be the manly role model for the son, to prevent the son from being homosexual. I'm concerned that Brett will learn feminine ways from my husband and turn out to be gay. How can I convince Ron that he needs to teach Brett the more manly things in life? -- WORRIED MOM IN FLORIDA

DEAR WORRIED MOM: From my perspective, you don't need to change a thing. With all due respect to Dr. Dobson, your husband is already a manly role model to your son. He is teaching the boy important survival skills that will be invaluable when he is older. With luck, your son will turn out to be every bit the man -- and father -- that your husband is.

Oy vey. I find myself hoping the kid does turn out to be gay, just to spite his anencephalic moron of a mother.

F*ckin' hell, worst idea EVER

2006-04-20T23:58:37Z

Corporations suck major unwiped ass. I can't believe this is even a real proposal. Every moment I think I've seen the most Satanic abuse of our privacy rights from this bought-and-sold administration, the next moment proves I ain't seen nothin' yet.

http://civic.moveon.org/alerts/savetheinternet.html

Are you heavily medicated or just from California?

2006-04-20T23:32:02Z

Our workgroup just hired a new editor. I've been trying to train her to use our authoring system. She's not dumb; I mean, you'd certainly never get that impression from her resume. She taught English as a second language for 15 years in California and has been editing Web sites for a number of years. So I'm wondering what her disconnect is.

Me: "So this field, here, is where you select what stage your document is in before you check it back in to version control. And you can see here that you've got a number of choices: Ready for Technical Review, Ready for Editing, Complete and Ready for Publishing, and so on. You just choose one of these and hit this button to check a doc back in."

Her: Hmm, so who makes up the choices that go in this list?

Me: Wha--? Don't worry, it's not important how this list gets populated. All you need to know is that you've got to select one of these fields--

Her: So you don't know, then? You don't know who fills in the choices in this drop-down list?

Me: I'd guess it's the Tools programming team. But that's not important. Let's move on to the next--

Her: So how would I get an item in this list added or changed?

Me: thinking to self: WTF are you, Rain Man? Get over it. It's not important who populates the goddamn list, OK? It's what you do with it, you dig? I suppose you could mail the Tools team and ask them if they'd add another value to that field. But as you can see, the list is already quite comprehensive.

Oh, it went on. Ugh. See whaddimean? And today, I was in there chatting idly with her officemate (a cool Canadian CF writer/sysadmin with two dogs) about how dog-friendly Port Townsend is, because I'd just been there. Suddenly, Rain Woman just cuts us right off and bursts into the conversation with:

"Hey, I'm going to a wedding shower tonight. It's at the Columbia Winery. They've invited men to the shower. Don't you think that's weird?"

Her officemate and I stammer for a half second or so. We're not antisocial or cliquish, and it's clear that Rain Woman just wants to have a part of the conversation, so we take her cue and start talking about her wedding shower. OK, fine. Wedding showers blah blah blah.

And while we're talking about the prevalence of men at contemporary gift showers, she suddenly turns back around to her computer, then wheels around again and says to me, "Do you know how I can get permission to edit this Web site? I don't seem to have access and I'm in charge of it now."

Is it possible to catch ADD from one's co-workers?

Better Be Brand New

2005-12-21T00:52:19Z

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/252720_etiquette20.html

Ugh.

OK, I can perfectly understand why no one would want a urine-stained mattress, or a lamp that's missing its cord. Obviously, filth, especially of the human excretion kind, is a dealbreaker for donated goods. And anything that would render a donated item unusable (duh, lamp no workie without cord, genius) is also a dealbreaker. Yeah, yeah, it's also rather pikerish to gift-wrap a used item (though I'd have to say, my friends have gift-wrapped many a delightful thrift-store treasure for me over the years, usually books).

But I'm not getting why the poor are entitled to stuff that's as nice as what I have (or better, given my modest turnover habits) or what I'd give to my friends. No, I'm sorry, the litmus test "would you give this to a friend" is not a valid one, IMO. Sorry, not buying the musings of the sanctimonious charity pixies that used stuff -- stuff that looks visibly used but is still in working and good condition -- is unsuitable for donating to the poor. The throng of greasy single mothers who orbit such agencies in hopes of a free lunch clearly aren't that badly in need, if they'd refuse something on the grounds that it looks used. Maybe what they could really use is a horse-sized dart of Norplant, right in the ass, so they'll stop breeding and bringing more kids into a life of poverty and manufactured entitlement.

This, I suppose, is what passes for self-esteem among those lacking the critical thinking skills to understand that the TV commercials about how new stuff makes them so cool aren't really their friends. "Well, the TV commercials say I deserve a brand new car and a diamond ring, even if my credit score is barely in the double-digits. They must be right. I deserve to have clothes as nice as everyone else in my office, even if I'm just the copy machine temp and they're the executives. I'm entitled."

Bullshit. No one's entitled to brand-new clothes and furnishings. No, you're not entitled to have nice things, especially if you're not willing or able to pay for them. No, you're not entitled to have a brand-new DVD player just because you bred.

WTF is wrong with a half-used bottle of shampoo? Is it not still usable? The shampoo comes OUT onto the hair and dandruff; the hair and dandruff doesn't go IN the BOTTLE. It's not contaminated beyond use, GMAFB. Don't you think a new immigrant family would be quite tickled to have a half-bottle of shampoo, or half a candle? If you really don't have the money to buy shampoo, and you're out of shampoo, I think you'd be hootin' happy to find a half-bottle somewhere in the house. I have half-candles sitting on my mantelpiece as I write; they're perfectly usable. I was poor as a kid. Clearly, my definition of "poverty" is quite a bit more extreme than that understood by someone who claims to be too poor to buy crap for the children they chose to grunt into the world, yet snivels if she doesn't get a brand-new DVD player from her Adopt-a-Family hosts. A "dusty" VCR that still worked would have been a miraculous gift in my household. We'd have thoroughly enjoyed it.

Depending on where the rip is, ripped clothing can be mended. A stuffed animal with a missing limb can have a new one made out of an old T-shirt. Do we throw away people just because they're missing limbs, too? Is there no acceptable middle ground between "brand new" and "garbage" for today's self-described poor? Godamighty, my Depression-era grandparents must be flipping over in their graves at this wasteful, landfill-stuffing, self-obsessed nonsense.

For the record, my own couch is, in fact, "shabby." I certainly have the resources to replace it; but frankly, I don't see anything uncomfortable about a "shabby" but perfectly usable couch. There's nothing wrong with it except for its somewhat worn appearance. A $25 slipcover from Tarjay would perk it up like magic. My entertainment cabinet is filled with used CDs, DVDs and VHS tapes that I've found online, cheap. At the moment, I'm wearing a pair of pants I got at the thrift store for $3.99. I just don't see what's wrong with reusing the usable. It reduces sweatshop labor; it's good for the environment; and it's a much, much cheaper way to live. Where'd we get this shame about having used goods in our homes?

"Donation etiquette," my ass. How about we discuss the etiquette of bringing children into this world that you can't support and never had any intention of paying for? What kind of etiquette must you have to pop out child after child into poverty, and then blame the rest of us for their crushing disappointments at the holidays?

Maybe the reason some of these people are poor in the first place is that they demanded brand-new stuff from stores, and told themselves (or allowed themselves to be told by advertising) that they were too good for garage-sale or thrift-store goods. And now, the bills have come due.

Stuff that Really Torques Me I

2005-12-12T22:25:12Z

Not a big fan of Safeway's smarmy, faux-friendly practice of seizing my receipt at the end of a transaction, and reading my name off it as they "thank" me. "Thank you, Mrs. So-and-So!"

Excuse me, grocery-peddling dilholes, but this is my personal identity information, and I'd just rather you kept it private. I neither need nor want every loser in line behind me, not to mention attendant bag boys and whoever the f*** else happens to be within earshot, to know my name.

I've been shopping here at the Safeway in my neighborhood for seven years now, I've spent thousands of dollars in there by now; and if you don't f***ing know my name by now, it's because neither of us is really that interested in me sharing it with you.

Take your corny-corporate name-reading marketing gimmick and shove it up your asses!

When Mommies Attack

2005-12-08T23:11:27Z

Here's a post I put on Salon in response to an article about a new SAHM (that's Stay At Home Moms) magazine, Total 180.

And here's a sample of what I get for my troubles.

The argument always goes this way; it was ever thus:

Me: "Your choice to bear children is destroying our planet, you don't deserve societal support for it, you haven't offered any credible reasons for sustaining such a high population of any top-level consumer, especially humans; and it's pretty obvious to some of us that if childrearing is hard work, it's hard work entirely of your own design and making."

Them: "You're the devil incarnate!!!"

Still waiting for an answer that makes slightly more sense than "you're a monster who should never, ever, ever be allowed around chillllldrunnn!!" At least I've learned to stop holding my breath waiting.

Little Orphan Annie

2005-12-08T22:51:38Z

Aww. Ain't it a shame. (Bwahaha!)

Ann Coulter Booed, Cuts Speech Short

Couldn't happen to a nicer goil.

How you know you're ordering too much Chinese food for delivery...

2005-12-08T00:18:18Z

...you open the door, and the delivery guy compliments you on your remodel of the room. Feh.

Love Your Customers

2005-12-07T19:40:48Z

They've just implemented a point system here at Willie Wonka's, whereby we scramble to rack up "customer contact" points.

You know, far be it from me to sound like less than a model employee, but I just don't givvashit. Have you seen some of my "customer feedback" lately? Looks like it was hammered out by apes wearing mittens. These are sysadmins that are using the software I write for, and I gotta tell you, there's a reason why they're compugeeks, and not frequent contributors to the Sewanee Review. I can't even understand WTF they're saying half the time.

So tonight, I've got to spend my eagerly anticipated ass-on-couch time at a hotel at the skeevily yuppie Redmond Clown Center power-schmoozing with my customers. They're exclusively white and Indian males in their 20s and early 30s, which makes it somewhat difficult to stroll right up to them and launch into a stilted discussion about UNIX Interop, because as a fat chick, I don't even f***ing exist.

I tell you, these clowns make me late for this week's Veronica Mars, I'm done, you hear me?

Yeah, I suppose I should just bend over, grab my ankles, and be glad I've got a job. Thank you, Master; may I have another?