Comment-then-delete has changed from a mostly non-public way of contacting someone to an absolutely insecure way of contacting someone, due to the possibility of subscription notifications.

Apple on DRM

Follow-up on the existential confusion picture: You Might Be A Prostitute: ...
Related: Australia's government has the good sarcasm.

*dies* A love meme led me to buttfacemakani's artwork, most specifically, Hermione about to commit fanfic.

My eyes are all goopy, in ways I haven't experienced since the last time I had pinkeye, which was at about age 12 or so. But my eyes aren't all red or -- *checks mirror* -- well, damn. I'm seeing a little bit of inflammation there, I sure am. So! I'll be playing "let's not touch my roommate" for a while, and she's going to be playing "let's be really careful to wash hands at all times" for a while. I'm hoping that it's only that I'm up rather late and I've had a stressful week and there's probably an eyelash in my eye or something, because pinkeye is annoying. And I do get goopy eyes when I'm supposed to be asleep. (And hcolleen just looked at my eyes and thinks just tired, unless I wake up and they're crusted closed.)

I just worked 4.25 hours and came home today, since I'd gone overboard on Monday, preparing for the meeting. I'm trying without success to remember the absolutely vile pun that I shared with Pink Shirt Guy's counterpart this morning, because it was gnarly and LJ deserves to hear it, because I love LJ enough to share the pun-ishment. But all I remember is telling her that as a matter of fact, I will pun without mercy if given the slightest encouragement.

On Thursday before the meeting with my great-grandboss, I wound up helping out K-Bone with a database issue. I was rather stunned that she didn't know what a type mismatch was. I look around me at work and I see all these people with all kinds of fantastic talent, and that makes me very happy, but it's also unnerving to realize that my place in the hierarchy is computer and data related. I really don't necessarily want to be "the geek". That's a little beyond my comfort level. I'd rather be a geek among geeks, of equal or lesser skill. To that end, I wind up up-training those around me, so I don't have to keep giving them advice on what a computer is and how to use it.

Pink Shirt Guy, in the few months that he's had me as an assistant, has suddenly stopped fearing spreadsheets. He's been a devoted pencil-and-paper guy for the past 30 years, and was fairly firmly committed to staying this way until he either retired or dropped over dead. Suddenly he's started having spreadsheets of his own devising blossom all over around him. This pleases me beyond all reason, because all I really showed him how to do was the basic formula, and then answered questions about UI and making things easier. The next step, of course, will be to get him comfortable with importing flat text files.

After finishing up the paperwork, I walked back home, read for a while, then visited my happy bank to make sure that I got the "hey, you've been with us for three years" bonus thing taken care of. I got quarters too, because the teller was so flaming and cute. Then I went back home and collapsed in a heap in bed, finished the book I was reading, took off my glasses and my phone, and went to sleep.

There I stayed until I woke up. I didn't even realize that hcolleen had gotten home until I was cussing at the router and messing with it, and usually I at least register that she's home when she gets here. Had to reboot the cable modem and the wireless router, because things were not going well with them, and it would not resolve certain addresses. Grouch. Then I hung out on IRC and read fic and all that good stuff.

And now it's time for bed again.

I am totally digging "Paint Your Picture", Showaddywaddy.
http://www.showaddywaddy.net/paint.htm

Pink Shirt Guy: "What's the relationship of kilobytes to a megabyte?"
Me: "Megabyte is bigger."
Pink Shirt Guy: "Is it a hundred kilobytes to a megabyte, or a thousand?"
Me: "A thousand. ... A geek thousand, 1024."
Pink Shirt Guy: "A geek thousand? Like a baker's dozen?"

Vaporware: "Penny for your thoughts" paid blogging site.

Hyperactivity is setting in. Grandma Cinderella brought one of her grandkids in while she had a meeting. Snarky Lady started babysitting. Well, she started me babysitting, but since I'm kind of withdrawn with kids, she took over and they were playing Pinball together. (There's an exploit on the training room computers that allows game-playing.)

Called V (the owner of the car I've been carsitting) Thursday night to confirm pickup plans. She'd been scheduled to come back home today. However, her plans got changed on her. So I talked her battery down while grocery shopping.

Tonight I got to go on break at 6, and dinner fairly disappeared. So I called her just to check in, because I thought she'd need a friendly voice again. (She's dealing with Family.) There's not really much you can say to someone with a relative who is barely alive because modern medicine can keep them alive, the cause of their illness is mere age, and the joy has gone out of life. "I hope [the] passing is peaceful" hardly touches on it.

She'll be back next Friday, the 2nd of June.

I'm hoping to get 4th June off, in celebration of Birthday. Work already promised me a great present, though, so I won't be complaining (too much) if I can't get the day off. There is plot to have a potluck to celebrate Cinderella's birthday. Date of the potluck? The 4th. *grin*

Working in the morning and celebrating with Darkside in the afternoon wouldn't be too bad of a way to spend the day.

Work is offering crazy overtime. I just might take some of it, if there's any left on Sunday afternoon. I'll be running jobs Saturday and Sunday, so I'll know just how much energy I have left over. But it's the last Sunday with the car...

Have trimmed the paperwork at the end of the shift down to the bare minimum. I still have to deal with the paperwork from the phone goons, but it feels like a lot less to do now that I can pull a few things, plug them into a spreadsheet, and have three different reports generated for me, and some more stuff calculated to copy. (Have not yet figured out how to get it to print sweetly. Shall work on that.)

Came home to cheesecake and strawberries. Hooray cheesecake and strawberries. Before stepping in, though, I took a detour to the fitness center and did a few minutes on the funkystairstepper, because it's been a while since I've had the time, and I deserve a little proper relaxation like that.

You know you may have been working too hard when working out becomes a treat to look forward to at the end of the day if you get out early enough. But with the UnF Spreadsheet, I may get out earlier than usual on a regular basis.

The name of the other spreadsheet is officially "TPS Report" now. Ha! We did it! Hooray Pink Shirt Guy!

Developed method of looking up the phone numbers of someone's interviews, for use on correction form. Go, me. Go, pretty phone goon girl who sometimes does switchboard, for giving me the idea.

My schedule got fried up, scrambled, and served over toast. I'm half done with my work week this week at this point. My usual work week is Thursday through Sunday. (Four days. Usually over 40 hours at this time of the year.) This week I'm working Tuesday, Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday.

Work is insanely busy. ( Read more... ) I fear becoming too sarcastic for my fellow supervisors to stand.

Other than that, I'm plugging away on the new book, which is now fueled by my work-related burnout issues, rather than hampered. I'm not sure what my options for the upcoming season of insane holidays will be. I have limited transportation, so Thanksgiving may be rather more quiet than it was last year. (Besides, Lady Malfoy hasn't invited me, and I'm not sure if she'll extend an invitation this year, given that they may want a very quiet family Thanksgiving, and I'm still dubious as to my Family status.)

"Behind on sleep" seems to be a chronic status and part of the job description, rather than an emergency state. This does not make me happy, but not many things have been making me brilliantly happy of late, not that stick. Last night I was very punchily giggling over, in turn, the stuff I was writing, and the Arcata Eye police blotter. The two bear a certain stylistic similarity to each other.

We've now got two walkers on the floor bearing the name David R. We have to distinguish them by hairstyle -- ponytail or flattop? Flattop David seems to have geeky leanings in his spare time, and has near-infinite patience with what I politely call "operator error" on the part of some of our less technically savvy employees. I approve. I have no plans to collect either of these Davids, though both of them are distinctly cute.

Darkside has not been about much lately. I'm hoping he's in this weekend. It's difficult for me to articulate exactly how much he means to me. It's difficult for me to describe how much stress I shed in one minute in his company. It's difficult for me to find time with him. If all else fails, I'm going to be using my e-mail.

I seem to be evolving into the sort of character who can work in an office. This is a crash course in office politics (and, in my case, how to avoid them). ( Read more... )


[edit: Oh, yeah. And I'm sick. Like, snot-nosed ill.]

We have a thing at work called the Book of Quotes, where some of the funniest damn things said in the workplace are recorded. It's a rubber-banded stack of quarter-size sheets of paper.

We also have a survey at work where people talk about their utility companies. One open-ended question is about why the respondent chose to give that numerical rating on a "Dealing with power outages" question. The response I found in my editing: "Because it shouldn't take that long to get it up." Before I edited it for context and clarity (to "Because it shouldn't take that long to get the power back up"), I pulled a screen capture for the book of Quotes.

Pink Shirt Guy took one look at it, snickered, and dumped the printout in the recycle bin.

(I have a copy saved in my Workplace Fun folder on the file system.)