Azure Jane Lunatic (Azz) 🌺 (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
azurelunatic) wrote2014-09-27 06:28 am
azurelunatic) wrote2014-09-27 06:28 am
150 is a lot of miles.
Today's shenanigans with the helpdesk software at work require a lot of swearing to describe. Suffice to say that I found that something that I thought was a bug was in fact some Broken As Designed, in a way that the main helpdesk people were functionally unable to effectively even help diagnose. (And cue the very loud argument over the phone where I attempt to get the guy from helpdesk on the same page as me.) I bemoan the state of my inbox.
I woke up before my alarm. Something recently had reminded me of "Jenny Says", so I played it, and now a mix tape of the LJ years wants to assemble itself in my brain.
I went and refueled Vash, then merrily went off to work. I had my pick of parking spaces. Upon entering, I lit the "$NAME Beacon", the lava lamp that the Stage Manager typically turns on first thing in the morning, and that Purple tends to turn off as we leave. Last night he joked that it can only be operated by a $NAME, and (not kidding, but still hilarious) that if I called him to light it, that he would come over, laugh in my face, and depart without lighting it. (Though he has no objections to being the one to turn it off if it happens that he's closer, and I presume that if he came through and found it turned off first thing in the morning, he might turn it on. It's just a summons which would likely cause laughter and refusal.)
I found myself replacing the cyan toner in the laser printer, which was not on fire.
Lunch involved conversation about police brutality, dashcams and body cams, and guns vs. tasers. Lennon Glasses Guy quite passionately put forth that it would be better to have police armed with non-lethal weapons. Purple put forth that any supposed non-lethal weapon capable of putting someone out of commission had a non-zero capability of also causing death, and it seemed from the shape of his commentary around the topic that he felt that law enforcement are generally reluctant to kill people on purpose, and are therefore restrained from broad use of their weapons; a supposedly non-lethal weapon has fewer psychological barriers to use, and would likely be used more often, and would therefore have a chance of causing accidental death. He didn't speculate on whether this rate of accidental death would exceed the current US police rates of law-enforcement-caused death. And that is a thing which I think is sort of crucial to the whole debate, and also one which I would be entirely content to allow people armed with better statistics than I have to weigh in the balance.
I was looking with an eye towards wrapping up around 3, because beer bash started at 4. I had very definite ideas about even having the draft of my timesheet in by 4, and ready to submit after the beer bash. And that's when I ran into that problem with the helpdesk. By 4, I had just about wrapped up the yelling-with-helpdesk sections. And that's when I poured myself a helpdesk-software sized slug of some file cabinet vodka, dumped in ice, grabbed a 7-up, and stomped off to the beer bash.
phone: oktoberfest? it's september
Mr. Zune: It's almost oktober.
lb had staked out a table. When I came back with some sausage and potatoes to buffer the vodka-and-soda, Not Mr. Rainbow had joined the table, and another guy from lb's team soon joined as well. (It may have been Mr. Netflix.) Purple followed, along with phone, Mr. Zune, and eventually R and the Other Guy. Not Mr. Rainbow and Mr. Supposedly-Netflix wandered off, as the table didn't necessarily support that count of people. Chatter was good! I was quite efficient in my getting-tipsy, and soon found myself smiling foolishly (particularly at Purple). There were tales of insufficient cooling and chip woe; Purple and Not Mr. Rainbow compared notes. The IP-over-Bears thing had to be re-explained to those who had not been there, as did the stopped-innovating-on-war-crimes drone shenanigans ideas. Hilarity ensued. I did not have seconds on the vodka.
Since it was an Oktoberfest-themed beer bash, there was a band in! They had the outfits! One of them produced a great big alpenhorn. He played it outside. lb started giggling, and found it harder to stop when the player explained how they used to be made out of wood, but that was too stiff and heavy, so now it was carbon fiber, and he could collapse it to a fraction of its length -- see! Only two feet long! And it only weighs less than three pounds! You can bring it on airplanes! And it has a protective cap!
R had brought pulled pork for those of us who had chimed in. This did result in some tomfoolery with bags of meat, particularly as the phrase "a bag of meat" can be put to so many bad uses.
Dinner, as a topic, was broached (it being about two hours after bash had started). We had already lost Mr. Zune; we shortly lost phone, and then in the discussion of possible venues, we lost the Other Guy. That left four of us. By the time I re-emerged from the bathroom, the debate raged on, nearly an hour after it had first been proposed. lb pitched the idea of going to downtown Campbell in the particular several blocks, and making up our minds there; I was in favor as long as there was an address that I could navigate to, rather than last time's general disaster. This was done, and we agreed to met up there.
I tried the first parking garage. It was packed. I was chatting with Nora, and as I made my way back down the structure, I saw a very familiar-shaped little silver sedan, with a very familiar license plate and a very familiar driver. I waved. Purple waved. I started giggling uncontrollably. Then I passed lb and his girlfriend and a third person walking from the general direction of the second parking garage. I waved and hollered hi. Then I parked.
I was busy looking up lb's number from the last time we had been Out as a group in this general section of town, and texting Purple; I expected that we might have to do some figuring-out-where-we-all-were. As it was, I saw Purple's hair and then the rest of him, and the rest of the group. And we were off to a place for food.
Luckily, there was a table for six, and there were only the five of us. We had to explain the concept of "bear" (the human kind) to R. While lb was relatively tactfully providing a general physical description, I had less tact. "Like Purple, except gay," I said. "And hairier," lb and Purple felt compelled to add, indicating his chest.
lb's girlfriend asked about my necklace, so I showed it to her. (This is mostly notable to me because it involved taking it off -- she's legally blind, and from across the table it was a shiny, coinlike spot below my throat. I don't take it off much unless there's some sort of needed repair.)
The burger was really nice. BBQ sauce on a burger is sometimes iffy -- too much and it can be some sort of fight. lb mentioned over-sweetness, and I clarified that this was in fact quite sweet, but it was balanced well enough that it was more of a "What is this delicious sweet contrast to the savory burger? Oh!" thing. Purple, who had the same thing, agreed. The lime juice worked nicely on the garlic fries. (Yay sharing. However, splitting an order of fries does nothing to convince the world that we're not dating. He is not interested, and we are not dating.)
Apropos of some dude at work who Purple and lb know who is into it, the topic of steampunk came up. Purple and I compared notes on our favorite Abney Park songs. Since I'd been planning to introduce him if he wasn't already aware, this fills me with delight. ("Is that the one with 'To the Apocalypse in Daddy's Sidecar' on it?" "Yeah, but that's not my favorite; 'Letters'." "Oh yeah, that one always makes me cry." "It's so good though.")
Note to self: avoid sharp head-turns in proximity to other people. My braid is now long enough that it will hit other people, and not just me. (Sorry, Purple.) Also, I managed to poke Purple with my cane while retrieving my bag from under the table. Woe.
The end of the meal involved some collaborative table sculpture. Purple thought we were playing dominoes. We weren't, but it was still good moves in the sculpture.
My ankles sometimes object to bar stools. This was a bit unfortunate to discover right before wandering off to other places. Jaywalking is not indicated under these circumstances.
The place we were headed in search of dessert was full up. We went along to another place. I got a little lemon tart. Purple got something with cherries and whipped cream. We swapped samples. Both were delicious. R got some chocolate something and some very tart fruit puree. lb had a mango something with a creamy top that looked upholstered. I shared the Action Verbs To Avoid On Your CV game. lb declared that there ought to be some sort of bonus for the use of one word and then its opposite, for example, "Boning fish" -- okay, sometimes you've got to take the bones out of a fi-- wait, "Deboning fish" a few paragraphs down? :\
When I ate the lemon bit that was on the center of the meringue, I made such a lemon face. It was delicious! But sour!!!
It was time for R to go to bed, so we split. We were all parked along the same route, if not all together. R peeled off first. A few streets later with a drunk guy picking up a drunk friend in a modified caveman grip, Purple was parked. I snagged a quick sideways hug. lb and I had parked in the same garage, so the three of us continued together. lb stopped to admonish a cockroach.
lb's new car is sleek and pretty. He and his girlfriend headed off.
I discovered, upon hopping into Vash, that I'd lost my headset. I know how it must have happened -- I stuffed it into an insecure pocket -- but alas.
I have been yelling (much more cheerfully than about helpdesk) in Steph's general direction about Purple's beard. At this point it is ensuing much hilarity.
The helpful electronics department guy at a nearby Target said their offerings probably did not meet my headset needs. So I drove off.
I stopped back in at work because I wanted to wrap up before Monday. The PM who had been in the cube down the block from me in the old building cruised through. We commiserated about the helpdesk software. She had a great idea, and I wikified the beginnings and gave her mad propz in a format that would come to the attention of her manager. Then I promptly forgot my wallet, a fact which I only discovered upon reaching home. I debated the situation for a few minutes, but ultimately decided that I would be so much less happy getting it tomorrow. So I drove all the way back to work to grab it. Dammit.
And now I am home and it's a terrible hour of the morning, but I had a really lovely Friday night.
I woke up before my alarm. Something recently had reminded me of "Jenny Says", so I played it, and now a mix tape of the LJ years wants to assemble itself in my brain.
I went and refueled Vash, then merrily went off to work. I had my pick of parking spaces. Upon entering, I lit the "$NAME Beacon", the lava lamp that the Stage Manager typically turns on first thing in the morning, and that Purple tends to turn off as we leave. Last night he joked that it can only be operated by a $NAME, and (not kidding, but still hilarious) that if I called him to light it, that he would come over, laugh in my face, and depart without lighting it. (Though he has no objections to being the one to turn it off if it happens that he's closer, and I presume that if he came through and found it turned off first thing in the morning, he might turn it on. It's just a summons which would likely cause laughter and refusal.)
I found myself replacing the cyan toner in the laser printer, which was not on fire.
Lunch involved conversation about police brutality, dashcams and body cams, and guns vs. tasers. Lennon Glasses Guy quite passionately put forth that it would be better to have police armed with non-lethal weapons. Purple put forth that any supposed non-lethal weapon capable of putting someone out of commission had a non-zero capability of also causing death, and it seemed from the shape of his commentary around the topic that he felt that law enforcement are generally reluctant to kill people on purpose, and are therefore restrained from broad use of their weapons; a supposedly non-lethal weapon has fewer psychological barriers to use, and would likely be used more often, and would therefore have a chance of causing accidental death. He didn't speculate on whether this rate of accidental death would exceed the current US police rates of law-enforcement-caused death. And that is a thing which I think is sort of crucial to the whole debate, and also one which I would be entirely content to allow people armed with better statistics than I have to weigh in the balance.
I was looking with an eye towards wrapping up around 3, because beer bash started at 4. I had very definite ideas about even having the draft of my timesheet in by 4, and ready to submit after the beer bash. And that's when I ran into that problem with the helpdesk. By 4, I had just about wrapped up the yelling-with-helpdesk sections. And that's when I poured myself a helpdesk-software sized slug of some file cabinet vodka, dumped in ice, grabbed a 7-up, and stomped off to the beer bash.
phone: oktoberfest? it's september
Mr. Zune: It's almost oktober.
lb had staked out a table. When I came back with some sausage and potatoes to buffer the vodka-and-soda, Not Mr. Rainbow had joined the table, and another guy from lb's team soon joined as well. (It may have been Mr. Netflix.) Purple followed, along with phone, Mr. Zune, and eventually R and the Other Guy. Not Mr. Rainbow and Mr. Supposedly-Netflix wandered off, as the table didn't necessarily support that count of people. Chatter was good! I was quite efficient in my getting-tipsy, and soon found myself smiling foolishly (particularly at Purple). There were tales of insufficient cooling and chip woe; Purple and Not Mr. Rainbow compared notes. The IP-over-Bears thing had to be re-explained to those who had not been there, as did the stopped-innovating-on-war-crimes drone shenanigans ideas. Hilarity ensued. I did not have seconds on the vodka.
Since it was an Oktoberfest-themed beer bash, there was a band in! They had the outfits! One of them produced a great big alpenhorn. He played it outside. lb started giggling, and found it harder to stop when the player explained how they used to be made out of wood, but that was too stiff and heavy, so now it was carbon fiber, and he could collapse it to a fraction of its length -- see! Only two feet long! And it only weighs less than three pounds! You can bring it on airplanes! And it has a protective cap!
R had brought pulled pork for those of us who had chimed in. This did result in some tomfoolery with bags of meat, particularly as the phrase "a bag of meat" can be put to so many bad uses.
Dinner, as a topic, was broached (it being about two hours after bash had started). We had already lost Mr. Zune; we shortly lost phone, and then in the discussion of possible venues, we lost the Other Guy. That left four of us. By the time I re-emerged from the bathroom, the debate raged on, nearly an hour after it had first been proposed. lb pitched the idea of going to downtown Campbell in the particular several blocks, and making up our minds there; I was in favor as long as there was an address that I could navigate to, rather than last time's general disaster. This was done, and we agreed to met up there.
I tried the first parking garage. It was packed. I was chatting with Nora, and as I made my way back down the structure, I saw a very familiar-shaped little silver sedan, with a very familiar license plate and a very familiar driver. I waved. Purple waved. I started giggling uncontrollably. Then I passed lb and his girlfriend and a third person walking from the general direction of the second parking garage. I waved and hollered hi. Then I parked.
I was busy looking up lb's number from the last time we had been Out as a group in this general section of town, and texting Purple; I expected that we might have to do some figuring-out-where-we-all-were. As it was, I saw Purple's hair and then the rest of him, and the rest of the group. And we were off to a place for food.
Luckily, there was a table for six, and there were only the five of us. We had to explain the concept of "bear" (the human kind) to R. While lb was relatively tactfully providing a general physical description, I had less tact. "Like Purple, except gay," I said. "And hairier," lb and Purple felt compelled to add, indicating his chest.
lb's girlfriend asked about my necklace, so I showed it to her. (This is mostly notable to me because it involved taking it off -- she's legally blind, and from across the table it was a shiny, coinlike spot below my throat. I don't take it off much unless there's some sort of needed repair.)
The burger was really nice. BBQ sauce on a burger is sometimes iffy -- too much and it can be some sort of fight. lb mentioned over-sweetness, and I clarified that this was in fact quite sweet, but it was balanced well enough that it was more of a "What is this delicious sweet contrast to the savory burger? Oh!" thing. Purple, who had the same thing, agreed. The lime juice worked nicely on the garlic fries. (Yay sharing. However, splitting an order of fries does nothing to convince the world that we're not dating. He is not interested, and we are not dating.)
Apropos of some dude at work who Purple and lb know who is into it, the topic of steampunk came up. Purple and I compared notes on our favorite Abney Park songs. Since I'd been planning to introduce him if he wasn't already aware, this fills me with delight. ("Is that the one with 'To the Apocalypse in Daddy's Sidecar' on it?" "Yeah, but that's not my favorite; 'Letters'." "Oh yeah, that one always makes me cry." "It's so good though.")
Note to self: avoid sharp head-turns in proximity to other people. My braid is now long enough that it will hit other people, and not just me. (Sorry, Purple.) Also, I managed to poke Purple with my cane while retrieving my bag from under the table. Woe.
The end of the meal involved some collaborative table sculpture. Purple thought we were playing dominoes. We weren't, but it was still good moves in the sculpture.
My ankles sometimes object to bar stools. This was a bit unfortunate to discover right before wandering off to other places. Jaywalking is not indicated under these circumstances.
The place we were headed in search of dessert was full up. We went along to another place. I got a little lemon tart. Purple got something with cherries and whipped cream. We swapped samples. Both were delicious. R got some chocolate something and some very tart fruit puree. lb had a mango something with a creamy top that looked upholstered. I shared the Action Verbs To Avoid On Your CV game. lb declared that there ought to be some sort of bonus for the use of one word and then its opposite, for example, "Boning fish" -- okay, sometimes you've got to take the bones out of a fi-- wait, "Deboning fish" a few paragraphs down? :\
When I ate the lemon bit that was on the center of the meringue, I made such a lemon face. It was delicious! But sour!!!
It was time for R to go to bed, so we split. We were all parked along the same route, if not all together. R peeled off first. A few streets later with a drunk guy picking up a drunk friend in a modified caveman grip, Purple was parked. I snagged a quick sideways hug. lb and I had parked in the same garage, so the three of us continued together. lb stopped to admonish a cockroach.
lb's new car is sleek and pretty. He and his girlfriend headed off.
I discovered, upon hopping into Vash, that I'd lost my headset. I know how it must have happened -- I stuffed it into an insecure pocket -- but alas.
I have been yelling (much more cheerfully than about helpdesk) in Steph's general direction about Purple's beard. At this point it is ensuing much hilarity.
The helpful electronics department guy at a nearby Target said their offerings probably did not meet my headset needs. So I drove off.
I stopped back in at work because I wanted to wrap up before Monday. The PM who had been in the cube down the block from me in the old building cruised through. We commiserated about the helpdesk software. She had a great idea, and I wikified the beginnings and gave her mad propz in a format that would come to the attention of her manager. Then I promptly forgot my wallet, a fact which I only discovered upon reaching home. I debated the situation for a few minutes, but ultimately decided that I would be so much less happy getting it tomorrow. So I drove all the way back to work to grab it. Dammit.
And now I am home and it's a terrible hour of the morning, but I had a really lovely Friday night.
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I shared the Action Verbs To Avoid On Your CV game.
Oh, I'd forgotten all about that game. It's so great.
"attempted"
"wished"
"pretended"
lb declared that there ought to be some sort of bonus for the use of one word and then its opposite
Yes, there should!
"impacted"/"disimpacted"
"appropriated"/"misappropriated"
"gloved"/"degloved" (I'm not sure if "gloved" is a verb. "degloved" is, and it's definitely not one you'd want in its verb form on your CV. Adjective might be okay under "medical conditions you treated in your previous position.")
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DEGLOVED.
DEFINITELY DO NOT WANT.
no subject