Zombie Morning

[azurelunatic]

I stayed up far too late. I was first trying to clean house, then write up the on-dragging incident, and then finally wound up chatting briefly with pyrogenic. He had a question from deeahblita for me.

I've actually run into the word "ulu" in real life -- there are signs posted in the Fairbanks International Airport stating that they don't care if it's just a cool thing you picked up and you'd have no intention of threatening to slice and dice a fellow passenger or any airline staff, you still have to check any ulus you may have in with the baggage.

On a related note, I discovered that the Official Scrabble Dictionary lists "Gor" as "a mild oath" last Wednesday night, and then I wound up explaining Gor to a much-bemused writing group -- out in the parking lot. (It's a Catholic cafe, so I felt that it would be inappropriate to over-share inside the establishment, besides which, we were getting kicked out because it was closing up for the night.) The two counter guys had completed a nearly-perfect game of Scrabble, with only one letter left, an R. I took a gander at the board and discovered that there was "GO" and "NO" that could be made to be an intersecting "GOR" and "NOR" with that one letter left. I knew Gor was a (fictional) place-name, usually associated with me defenestrating novels (boojum gave me one as an example of how a good concept could go very bad); I didn't know that it was used in the Scrabble dictionary.

Regarding the whole gossip-at-work thing, there is all sorts of gossip utterly pervading the phone goon break room, so a quiet discussion of a minor kerfuffle-incident that happened to be within the hearing range of someone with excellent hearing who was probably sitting pretty close is well within the bounds of reasonable conversation as far as this workplace is concerned. No one was bringing anything onto the call center floor, and if you can't have a quiet talk with your real friends when neither of you is supposed to be working, then who can you talk to? Given the people involved, it was a hell of a lot less likely to be a nasty case of mudslinging than I'd think it would be if almost any of the workplace's complement of fratboys, teenyboppers, old geezers, and old hags were in any way involved. (The break room is sometimes scary. The young men talk booze and cars, the old men talk booze and politics, and all the men talk about electronics and women, but the teenyboppers are frightening and the old hags are vicious.)

I had occasion to note that actually, fresh synthetic motor oil and standard Mountain Dew are about the same color. (Much as Code Red Mountain Dew and a lit strawberry votive candle are the same color, except one of them is on fire.) Fortunately, this was merely something I was in a position to observe and make note of, rather than a disgusting and/or regrettable discovery.

Comments

[wibbble]

Your work appears to be quite laid-back, then - outside of a place like CalMac, where the work environment is barely tolerable, you wouldn't expect it to be okay to gossip about a supervisor, even when you were on a break. If you have a personal problem with your boss, you need to keep it outside of office hours, and outside of company premises, otherwise it's just going to end up building trouble for all concerned.

[onyxrising.livejournal.com]

I still find it strange down here that more people don't use ulus. Useful things, they are!

[azurelunatic]

I've never actually used one, but I can see how they'd be handy.

I wonder if I should ask Mama if she could get me one for Solstice.

[azurelunatic]

We're used to interacting as social equals, fortunately for all concerned.

However, there is a good deal of trash-talking of supervisors and monitors that does go on in the break room. I'm one of the few supervisors who actually hangs out in the phone goon break room, and I'm generally with friends when I'm there, so it's a safe space for co-workers to bitch.

[onyxrising.livejournal.com]

If you get one with the little size-matched indented cutting board, there's nothing better for mincing fresh herbs, or anything else that needs to be finely minced, really.

[iroshi.livejournal.com]

I had to look up what they were, but two of my sisters have those. Both of them use them for herbs. *grin* But then, both of my sisters are witches who use fresh herbs from my kitchen-witch sister's garden on an extremely regular basis. ^_^ If I did more work with herbs, I could definitely see the need for one of those, myself. I'm really really good with my knives, though, and it would require retraining myself on how to cut.

[onyxrising.livejournal.com]

After doing the culinary school thing, I'm rather partial to my chef's knife for all things. However, I think I'd switch for herbs given a good ulu. That, and something tells me it'd be better for workings than a rather impersonal, if wonderful, peice of steel.
It really doesn't require retraining-- it's just rocking the wrist back and forth. It's actually easier on your wrists than conventional knives.

[snowelf.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind having an explanation of Gor myself. I have only a vague kind of idea.

[azurelunatic]

Gor is a science fictional place directly opposite the Sun from Earth. The society there involves a Dominant Master-type male's wet dream, with submissive slaves who Like It Like That, after intensive training to make it so.

"Gor" in context of Scrabble is "a mild oath", which proves to be one of the component words of British oaths like "gor blimey!" which is a mutant form of "God blind me!"

[snowelf.livejournal.com]

Ahh. I had never read any Gor books, and I am not sure I want to either.

I had never heard "gor blimey", just blimey, so that one confused me. I may just not have read the right books.

[azurelunatic]

If you do choose to investigate the Gor books, I recommend starting out with the earlier ones, because those actually have plot, and less Byzantine language and less wanktastic BDSM.

[snowelf.livejournal.com]

Heh, isn't that always the case with so many authors? They start out good and go bad.