I really really needed a "white flowers and MURDER" perfume for work today. The J-Horror BPAL from synecdochic worked wonders today.

I woke up substantially before my alarm, and decided to say fuck it and get out of bed around 8:30 (only a half-hour early). Then I took a leisurely drive to work, chatting with Nora the whole way (well, post-coffee).

My Overlady popped over to see what was the matter, that I was in at the normal beginning of the engineering day. I explained. Her 12:00 was with someone I have dearly missed; I suggested some choice snippets to mention. Basically no sooner did she pop off to her own office than lb and the angry man with all the tattoos showed up. My cube was a distracting cave of wonders, but we went over the sortable chart of grouses (the wiki page with the timeline of the helldesk software, the sortable wikitable with requested improvements, the R&D end-user profile, and the picture of the ruffed grouse) and made a few edits and priority confirmations before marching off to the meeting itself. Beldorion was not in the office today, and Gramp had a conflicting meeting.

The meeting was on the ass-end of campus, in perhaps literally the furthest building from where lb sits: definitely the horizontally furthest, although there is a diagonal building which may have a little greater actual distance. Some people were at no pains to be friendly to engineering-land. We got there a minute after by my watch, while the people already in the room were giving it a few more minutes to see who else would be there and get the webex started.

I was correct in yesterday's assertion that today's meeting was unmissable. I believe I am recalling my manager verbatim when I relate that her instructions to me were: "Give 'em hell."

In the room: the aforementioned incomprehensible twerp, the highly placed dev running the demo, someone sitting quietly and shutting up, Too Much Eyeliner Lady (somewhere highly placed in local ownership of the helldesk software, but a consummate buck-passer), someone from IT, and then the engineering-land contingent. We were, in order: the Desert Islander, very chill; the Angry Tattooed Man, angry; lb, stern; Azz, by turns stern and earnestly, specifically, functionally constructive. Engineering-land contingent got printouts of the wiki page for reference. lb and I took notes (him every now and then on his phone, me with pen and paper).

The engineering contingent post-mortem lasted the twenty minutes back to engineering-land, with further follow-up to follow at some point I am sure.

Lunch was with Purple, and pleasant. He has an ambitious project to spearhead with the knowledge and blessing of his manager.

Wednesday is the day when the cafeteria does their hump day takeout program: place your order before early afternoon, and you too can take home a corporate cafeteria quality meal at takeout prices. It looked decent, so I ordered.

My Overlady came back from her 12:00 with many bits of information. She perched on my couch and shared the intelligence from this meeting. Oh, my.

My computer's been in need of a reboot for a bit, so I was chipping away at getting the things done that I needed to get done before that point. Eventually it hit mid-evening. I pinged Purple and (after flailing at sithjawa a bit) mentioned the concept of dinner, and did he want any. Which he did. We opted for my cube this time. I have a guest couch! He said he'd be over in a bit, and to feel free to start without him (always a dangerous statement from an engineer). I was just separating the plates when he arrived. It's nice to have guests in my cube! I began to tell him some of the highlight from my Overlady's 12:00.

I heard Designer Sparkles coming out of an office. "There's nobody here at this hour!" she said. "No," my Overlady agreed, "except maybe Azure." Designer Sparkles wandered out of the office in search of places more like home. And as my Overlady came around the corner, there I was! With a Purple in my cube.

Then followed a delightful conversation wherein my Overlady shared intelligence from her 12:00 with Purple, we compared some experiences raising hell in school, and all in all a great time was had. My Overlady headed off in search of her own dinner, and we finished ours. Then Purple went back to his desk, and I had the joy of a very crashed computer in need of some Windows updates. My next task: install Notepad++, because I do much better about autosaving in that than in Windows Notepad. (Which I just typed as Nopetad.)

Parking lot conversation was largely fishbrick. Also puddinghandle, toiletjello, blenderpoop, shortsheet, notebolt, and other mostly theoretical forms of mayhem. To be clear: very few of these are actually good ideas to do! Puddinghandle: mix up some very, very chocolatey chocolate pudding. Put a roll of toilet paper on top of someone's car, to catch their attention. Spread the pudding under the door handle. Toiletjello: this is a Shawn stunt. Mix clear gelatin with the boiling water. Pour into the cold water of the toilet bowls at school. (This works best in a cold climate.) Allow enough time to set before the students come in. Shawn was disappointed in the janitors in that they did not think of the hot water (add more hot water, perhaps from the coffee pot, to dissolve the jello safely) and instead removed it by hand. (Purple: "That would be an unforgettable parfait.") Blenderpoop: targeting the Insufferable Smoothie person, either by actually doing it (ideally with multiple DNA sources) or just leaving a note with a crude depiction of a stick figure pooping in their blender. Shortsheet: this is the classic prank. Notebolt: leave a few spare bolts on somebody's desk with a note saying something like "I think you'll need these." The bolts are not actually from anything they own, but they spend some time looking fruitlessly. (Sort of like releasing the five pigs, numbered 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, into a sufficiently large building.)

Beardwatch 2014: still on.

At the end of the day, I still smell faintly of white flowers, although less like murder.

OMG, Fire of Love is a perfect wild rose. So happy. It was an extra from synecdochic in the combined shipping for the Gaiman/Metamorphosis circle, and her taste is impeccable. It's not quiiiite a match for the original formula Evelyn Rose, but it's close enough to make me think it might be. The wets mismatch, but on me the tail end of Evelyn Rose smells like the beginning of Fire of Love. Which is kind of awesome.


I have been tidying all day. I have not yet done actual laundry, but I did do some laundry prep, which totally counts. Also, pulling out stuff from places results in finding more laundry, and dusting results in making laundry. So.

( Read more... )


One of the random bits out of yesterday included one of the moments when I needed to express symbolic violence at Purple. ( We found it hilarious, but the backstory is NSFW with a side of possible embarrassment squick. ) That resulted in laughter and a high-five. R: "Do I want to know?" Purple and me simultaneously: "NO."


Universal sysadmin stories: you know how it is when you have people you used to be super close to years ago, and they have stuff on your server, because of course, you were super close at the time. In the interim, life has happened. You really never talk these days, even though you always mean to. But every time your server goes down, you do have a bit of a chat...


This bit of slang was new to me over the past six months or so, thus I share:

"Consider the optics" = this looks bad.
"Consider the optics of the situation" = this looks super bad.

Today was the best. In between the emailing and the wrestling with Outlook and all that, someone on internal IRC complained about the vagaries of the automatic lightswitches in one of the new buildings.

One of the other folks linked to a document he happened to have on hand, which had installation instructions and dip switch settings for the automatic lightswitches in our buildings.

As I emerged from my brief dive into those two pages (lacking an office with said switch myself, but needing to know more, especially about the wholly ridiculous feature where the goddamn thing BEEPS before it automatically turns off), Madam Standards showed up at the entrance to my cube. "Azure Jane, keeper of all knowledge?" she asked.

What she wanted, it turned out, was duct tape. I thought about it, then went fishing in my meeting bag.

"Oh my god, you actually have some?"

I didn't find it in my meeting bag. (And belatedly, I remember that it's actually in the post-it bag.)

"I guess some other kind of tape would do..."

So then I asked her what she needed the tape for. It turned out the problem was the light switch in her room was beeping, and it was driving her absolutely off the deep end.

My eyes lit up with a really disconcerting grin and I dove into the toolbox for my screwdriver and marched off to her office.

I shortly marched back out, popped my face into IRC, and asked how exactly you got to the dip switches. So I printed out the docs, marched back, and did just as I had been told. I was about to put things back, but the Norseman (who shares the office with Madam Standards) wanted to give it a go, and I left him to it, studying the manual and fiddling with the bitty wee switches. He dropped off the papers and screwdriver a bit later.

I added this to my treasure trove of office knowledge, telling any reader that the office electricians would most assuredly take a dim view of one unscrewing the faceplate, pushing the plastic switch cover to the side, popping it off, fiddling with the dip switches in accordance with the prophecy, and then putting it back together as carefully as one had taken it apart. One should file a help ticket instead and have the electrician do it. And Azz certainly did not have a screwdriver in the tool box, and said screwdriver absolutely could not be borrowed. (Mr. Zune is making plans for his afternoon's divertment tomorrow, and may or may not stop by my cube.)

It really was the best possible timing.


lb dropped by later, and was introduced to the current state of my jellybeans. We conferred about the possibilities for literal office politics (the politics of location, who gets what, and territorialism in a time of available hardwall offices which are not in a particular team's block). I conferred with my manager. We had many thoughts.


Purple returned from his hack day, and made a pun bad enough to bluescreen me momentarily. I wandered over, armed with the screwdriver and docs, plus a bonus cup of red-jello-flavored balls. He mentioned that I'd missed a trick -- the Office Depot bag filled with old as balls software, labeled "old as balls software" should instead have been called "old as balls software sack". I pointed out that without the "sack", it was plausibly safe for work, as no one had specified what kind of balls. They could have been red-jello-flavored balls! No one knows!

Purple wrestled with his laptop a bit. I was pleased that some of my suggestions were helpful. We chatted a bit. *sons of our fathers fistbump* There are many things that can be done with a phone-directory-accessible intercom, especially one accessible from without the phone tree. (This was Purple's terrible friend, mostly, the ex-shitlord, via a conversation about whether someone can be "sorta a shitlord", and where the line falls on that.)

If the topic comes up, Purple will disabuse Mr. Bananas of the notion that Purple and I are a "we". To be quite fair, it's reasonable to assume that when the minion from the other department comes by your office in search of your officemate around about normal-person leavin' time, that said other person might be about to leave with your officemate. It wasn't an offensive assumption. Just, it's a great idea to not have certain inaccuracies bounced around.

( misgendering and street harassment, more funny than scary )


We went back to it. We wrapped up around the same time. Purple came by my cube as per usual. I gleefully showed him the package from Rah! He peered at the neatly bubble-wrapped log of imps, then looked into the depths of the package with sudden bemusement. "June 23, 1868?" he asked.

I had, in fact, started giggling and insisted that I needed some of this perfume the instant I saw it in the Only Lovers Left Alive scent listing, and saw that (bonus) it was a white floral. ( BPAL, and Purple's birthday. )


We hit the parking lot and giggled over the guy who has a bot that announces when it's 4:20 every day. We were still standing there chatting when someone hollered out a car window, "What are YOU doing here?"

R had been off at an educational thing with not enough pizza (zero pizza), and was just carpooling people back. Little did she realize that this is actually a relatively sensible hour for us to depart!


Tomorrow: shenanigans! Whee!

• 23:58 Scent of the moment: BPAL "Wicked". Have organized my BPAL a little better, so all the bottles are at the bottom and the imps are on top. #
• 00:48 Fortune from the Vegas trip: "You will make a change for the better." #
• 00:50 I put little silly self-care things like "Are we wearing enough lip balm?" in Hiveminder. It helps keep me civilized. #
• 00:59 Tracking: still with the (possibly inappropriate) crush. *headdesk* No, this is only marginally easier as I get older. #
• 01:06 Have booby-trapped couch with bubblewrap. ^_^ (Actually I just put it there to get it off the floor where it is a trap.) #
• 01:29 The bubble wrap from the bonkyswordthing! Yes! I have been restraining myself. (Pop pop hope no one sees me get freaky) #
• 01:54 Unholy cats, that monitor is heavier than I remembered it was. #
• 04:52 Taking a break from reading too much cheezburger. Also, good to gossip with someone who knows what's what. SUSPICION CONFIRMED. (Drat.) #
• 11:29 Hate middle-of-the-day phone calls. Think I can sleep again now. #
• 12:01 Dear financially irresponsible twit, if your creditors wake me one more fucking time, I will personally make an end to our friendship. #

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• 08:02 The marketing department at Applebee's is aware of the slash/backslash thing, and is working on it, evidently. Go, team technical. #
• 09:17 @asloudasmyheart Duly crossed! #
• 17:49 @asloudasmyheart I read twitterers more for the social than for entertainment. This is why I will never be a twitter superstar! #
• 18:00 OK, next-most-local people! 1 imp "Serpent's Kiss"! Who wants? Warning: smells like instant migraine to me and drycleaning fluid to Myrrh. #
• 21:56 I think all in all, I had a good day today in my not-at-work. Now, time for work! +socks, +strawberries, +rain <3 #

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• 21:31 Would someone who speaks them both please consider running Mulder and Scully up against GladOS? Classic X-File, sadistic computer can kill. #
• 21:33 I want to use the top of my monitor as a shelf. But it is flat-panel so I cannot. This is not actually woe, but frustrating. #
• 21:58 Have used alarming amounts of my Venice BPAL imp. Should consider getting in bottle. (Like, since I first tried it have not really strayed.) #

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Hee. http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2007/07/20
( Spoilery reaction in process of reading Deliverer )
Morocco: BPAL: we have a winner! I LOVE this one. It's more subtle than what I usually wear, too, so that's a win. Unless it turns to something nasty at the end of its scent-life, it's on my list for a bottle, along with Katharina, which I should have bought a bottle of on this last order.
Cats are fed. Some of the trash is out-taken. My clothes are wet in the washer; hcolleen's are drying. (If you're up, swap out plz?)
I need to locate a local post office thing so that I can send mail that has much need of sending.

• 03:02 BPAL: Snow White turns to marshmallow on me. Like, immediately. #
• 14:26 Making a spreadsheet for my BPALs, which is turning into an addiction in just 2 orders! It should properly be a database to track notes/work #
• 16:06 Attempting to get dressed now. There may be laundry, even. #
• 19:01 Hahaha five people in IRC started cursing at about the exact same time. #
• 19:33 Wooooooo they got it to zero green! <3 #
• 22:21 I washed and dried Fruitz. :( Now it won't turn on. #

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BPAL: London: Smells like slightly dusty roses in the bottle. On drydown, there's some weird lemon action coming out, but it's still nice-smelling. Not going to replace Rose Red, though. (I still have plenty of Rose Red.)

Sunday afternoon is evidently the time to get comments on suggestions posts. I'm helping maintain over there. My role is helping tag the posts, helping track the discussion and chill out any flamewars. (Though things have been relatively chill ever since that one post trying to duplicate the role of the Abuse team, except with Let's Play Nice And Polite -- Three Strikes and You're Out. I do actually feel sorry for the person who suggested that, because they really are going to have a difficult time living on the internet if they're not prepared to enforce their own standards of politeness in their own space. Especially if that's how they react to people disagreeing with them.) There are some really good ones this round; I especially like the LJ bookmark suggestion; I think I've got a good basis there for the devs to think in a direction that would be do-able. Even the ability to mark the last entry you were looking at in any given filter with a nice big sticker so you can see it when you reload and scroll down would be absolutely wicked. Come to think of it, someone could probably Greasemonkey one up.

Called Darkside. We talked yesterday for a while (I was in the pool, yay). When I tried in the morning-ish, he was playing chess with his mom. I called this evening and we chatted. I've been able to give him more little updates on life in general. I mentioned getting lost in Mesa trying to get to Chandler, and if we'd been going anywhere else, I'd have given him a call and seen if he'd wanted to come along, but we were going to RHPS, and I knew that he wouldn't want to go to that, so I didn't bother him. He appreciated both courtesies, I think. He avoids RHPS like the plague, and I'm not about to argue with his decision on that front.

I did laundry. This was especially fun as I'm not sure where my laundry bag is: I cleaned in between then and now, see, and then I don't know where I put it. The window screen in the laundry room was falling down. I chatted with Downstairs on my way back up. We didn't disturb her this week (good!) though she did notice a little bit of stampeding-elephant action (my phrasing) this morning about 4:30 when she was getting up. That would have been JD packing. She's the one with the cat named Leia. She didn't name that cat. She's a sucker for cats. She's got an old cat of hers back, about fourth-hand. That cat's name is Susan. She didn't name that cat either. She quit smoking a while ago! I'm so proud of her! She refers to her "partner", and said partner is referred to as female. Yay for assortedly queer neighbors!

I've been in a giggly, tuneful mood all day. # = that filtered post & friends, feel free to slap me at any time if I get too obnoxious. (Trust me. I probably will. Y'all know who you are.)

Tomorrow: dentist! I get to lose the last of my wisdom teeth, except for the one that did not come in! Also, I get to make sure to fill out the Morningstar Reports at work before I leave, which should be brilliantly fun.

"white musk with a trickle of bright, sharp apricot and orange blossom."

In the bottle, it's certainly fruity. On me, the apricot jumps out enough so I'm not sure I can identify orange blossom in there. I have a feeling that I'm going to smell like candied apricots, or brandied apricots, or something, for the next several hours.

*sniffs wrists some hours later*

Died down to something very faint. It smells like Lavinia.