ipod iching

So, I've been feeling hard done by at work and uncertain of my position there, so I thought, just for kicks and giggles, to do infinitemonkey's iPod iChing. =) You just think about your problem, put your music on shuffle, and let the iChing do its work.

Song 1 The problem at hand: "Mack the Knife" Bobby Darin
Sample lyric: Now on the sidewalk, on a sunny morning (uh-huh) lies a body, just-a oozing life, and someone's sneaking 'round the corner. Could that someone be Mack the Knife?
Interpretation: Maybe I'm being stabbed in the back. Or somebody's being sneaky... (Big shocker there...)

Song 2 Your feelings about same:"Unmasking the Phantom" Phantom of the Opera
Sample lyric:Damn you! You little prying Pandora! You little cretin! Is this what you wanted to see? Curse you!
Interpretation: I want to unmask the person being sneaky? Either that or I'm just seriously pissed off about the whole thing. Probably the latter. ;c)

Song 3 The environment in which you operate: "Notes 2" Phantom of the Opera
Sample lyric: This is lunacy, well you know my views! Utter lunacy, but we daren't refuse.
Interpretation: Haha. Crazy micromanagement?

Song 4 Immediate action to be taken: "Too Marvelous for Words" Frank Sinatra
Sample lyric: You're just too marvelous. Too marvelous for words. Like glorious, glamorous, and that old standby amorous...
Interpretation: Trust that I'm a good person, good worker, etc. and have some damned self-esteem. Is that what you're trying to tell me, Franky baby?

Song 5 Likely outcome: "Undertow" Genesis
Sample lyric: Stand up to the blow that fate has struck upon you,
Make the most of all you still have coming to you
Interpretation: Make the most of a bad situation and maybe start looking forward to what I could do instead.

Wow. I think this thing really works... =)

best bad idea ever

Calmquetta talks about the best bad idea ever -- a Charles Dickens themed park in London. Too funny.

In the interests of full disclosure, I am having a personal bad day today. My clothes don't fit. I am fat fat fat. I feel like crying. I just spilled chai all over my phone. I have very little actual work to do to distract me.

Therefore. Anything snarky I may say cannot be held against me.

Fair warning, people. Stay the HELL outta my way.

[Very seriously considering taking a mental health day, more for my coworkers' personal health and safety than for my own...]

april is poetry month

ee cummings 95 poems, 92
----------------------------------------------------

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

I so totally rock

I was having a CRAPTASTIC day at work -- so much so that I actually had to leave and go outside and cry a little -- and all I wanted to do was go out to lunch and eat something fried. Preferably if it was also dipped in chocolate.

But. I had made plans earlier in the week to go to a pilates class for the first time with a friend. I TOTALLY wanted to back out, but she wouldn't let me. We went, the excercise kicked my BUTT, and I actually feel a lot better now.

YAY FOR ME!

FWEEEEE!

I got my IPOD MINI!!!! I decided to use the birthday money that Poppy gave me to buy it and it finally CAME! YAY!



I'm so in love. I've got 90 songs, and I'm not even a quarter of the way through my CD collection. SO EXCITED.

I'm also going to think about joining this site called audible.com which sells audio books and other content (like NPR shows, New York Times audio digest, etc.). For less than the price of a single book, you can subscribe and get two books or magazines a month. I think it would ROCK to be able to listen to a book while I was working out.

Not that I work out that often. But hey, if I had a great book to go back to, maybe it would entice me to work out more often, right?

Ooo! And the other cool thing is that I got this adapter thingy (free with mail in rebate) that will broadcast a signal from the iPod to any FM radio -- you just pick an empty station and you can play your music through the radio. This means I can play it in my CAR or on my big stereo or on ANYBODY's stereo or radio ANYWHERE!!!

=D YAY IPOD!

oh what a loverly week-end

It's raining today. Apt, perhaps, for a Monday morning, but I do have to thank the Powers that Be for holding off with the rain until today so that we could have nice weather for the weekend.

Saturday was gorgeous. It's just getting to where it's hot enough during the day that you want to be outdoors in the sunshine without a sweater. We went to the farmer's market in the morning and bought all kinds of yummy spring fruits and veggies -- asparagus, baby squash, avacados, bok choy, strawberries, and oranges. Then we went to TJ's to supplement our weekly groceries, which is a joy in and of itself, because I LOVE shopping at Trader Joe's. I just do. This week's exciting find: spinach and tofu egg rolls in the frozen section. Then, while Brandon went into the lab for a few hours, I went out and bought a strapless top for the sole purpose of sitting in the sun -- I refuse to have a farmer's tan for my wedding! So I took the computer and went and sat by the pool for a while to soak up some good old vitamin D. The really exciting thing is that there are several unprotected networks in range of the pool onto which I can sneak. The upshot of this is that I can surf the internet while sitting by the pool. How freaking Californian is that?? I love it.

Saturday night we went down the Irvine Spectrum -- a huge outdoor mall. We had dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, and then wandered around happily for a while.

Sunday was nice, but a little cooler. Not quite so well suited for staying outdoors, so we practically -- but not very excitingly -- decided to stay home and do our taxes. Scary.

The scariest thing about my taxes this year was that, for the first time in my entire tax-filing life, I lived in only one state and had only one job. And the amount of income I earned from said job was a respectable adult amount, and not a piddly $5,000 here, $8,000 there the way most of my adult life has been.

Scary.

Also, it was vaguely amusing to me to discover that I owed $3.31 in state taxes. First of all, state taxes are new to me as Texas, where I've always filed before, does not have a state tax. And second, it was just bloody amusing to write a three dollar check for my taxes.

I will not, saddly, be getting a refund this year, but Brandon, being the poor college student that he is (at least for a few more months) is getting a nice fat return. I asked him what he was going to do with it, and he said, "Travel to France."

Sweet boy. Gotta love him. =)

two poems from childhood

'In the back back garden, Thomasina
Did you recently vociferate a squeal?'
'Oh, I trod up an amphisbaena,
And it bit me on the toe and on the heel.
Yes, it bit me (do you know)
With its tail upon the toe,
While it bit me with its head upon the heel!'

'How excessively distracting and confusing.
Pray what, Thomasina, did you do?'
'Oh, I took the garden scissors I was using
And I snipped it irretrievably in two.
And it split with such a scrunch
That I shall not want my lunch.
And if you had heard the noise no more would you.'

'And where, Thomasina, are the sections
Of the foe that you courageously repressed?'
'Oh, they ran away in opposite directions,
And they vanished in the east and in the west.
And the way they made me squint,
It would melt a heart of flint,
And I think that I will go upstairs and rest.'

(I always thought it was, "In the back back garding Thomas Minna," so, when searching for this poem, I actually typed in "In the back back garden Thomas" first. I had to remove the Thomas to find it. =)



Oh there once was a puffin just the shape of a muffin
And he lived on an island in the deep blue sea
And he ate little fishes that were most delicious
And he had them for supper and he had them for tea.


Now this little puffin, he couldn't play nothin'
For he hadn't anybody to play with at all
So he sat on his isle and he cried for awhile
And he felt very little and he felt very small.


Now these little fishes, they said "If you wishes
You may have us for playmates instead of for tea"
Now they all play together in all kinds of weather
And now the puffin eats pancakes like you and me.

It's good that I've found other insane children to play with...

Happy April Fool's Day!

the joys of being corporate

Hello, my name is [lboggs] and I have effectively been...

CORPORATIZED.

This means that when I got to work this morning, my previous desktop computer had been replaced with a new one, one connected to our new corporate network, and one which:

a)would not accept my password (because the Network People changed it without telling me)
b)does not have any of the programs I need to do my work installed on it
c)does not have any of my previous permissions attributed to me (so I can't access any of the network drives)

But I do now have the interoffice instant message program installed. Because it's oh-so important for me to be able to chat with my coworkers while waiting to be able to do any real work.

The very best part of all is that they Corporatized my co-worker at the same time. Neither of us has access to any of our programs that we use to troubleshoot user problems, and since most of the users have now been COrporatized as well, they have a LOT of problems. I work in IT, people. I NEED MY BLEEPING COMPUTER TO WORK.

Could this week get any better??

I was chatting this morning with one of my coworkers via my new instant message system, and she asked, "Could it be an April Fool's joke?"

Oh how I sincerely wish it was. But it's not. Because Corporate does not have a sense of humor.

[/lboggs]