Category Archives: true life 2002

holiday cheer

Sometime in the not-so-distant past someone made a snide and off-handed remark about how easy and boring my job must be and then went on to ask how I could keep from becoming brain-dead after so long working in a library, going so far as to suggest that librarian’s salaries are a waste of tax dollars.

I have a fun job and a great boss. Some parts of it can be very tedious, but it’s never the same two days in a row. It also requires critical thinking, diplomacy, and social skills – it’s not mindlessly sitting at a desk staring into space or reading a book all day. I’ve had the job for ten years now and there’s always something new to learn. Could I do with fewer meetings? Sure, who couldn’t?

I kept trying to say as much, but the person said, “Yeah, right,” in a really snide way each time. I don’t like the person so I blew it off, but it pissed me off all over again this morning when a coworker was talking about her intense dread over going home for the holidays because her family is incredibly shallow and only values money, brand names, consumer goods. A group of us tried to cheer her up, pointing out how their constant sneering at her job and inability to form opinions on other people based on anything other than the brands they wear is a pretty pathetic form of arrested development and she should view her time with them as an important cautionary tale, or maybe a reminder of why she lives far away.

But I’m about to digress into a generalized tirade about rude, materialistic and judgmental people, when the original post was supposed to be about, oh, wait, rude, materialistic and judgmental people.

So yeah, I get it that there are people who don’t respect the choices of anyone other than themselves. They don’t understand I have actual responsibilities and a staff to supervise. I have a lot of flexibility – but I also have to work early, late and on weekends. I got 2 free college degrees courtesy of this job and I have no student loan debt. I get loads of vacation and I can have lunch or coffee with Husband every single day if I want to. I work with some annoying people, but I also work with some of the greatest people in the world.

Plus, my office is cold and dark, except when it’s really hot. Wait, why is that a good thing? I don’t think it is so I better quit while I’m ahead.

What I’m saying is, happy holidays and don’t let your family drive you insane. Instead of taking the bait, try this: paste a Mona Lisa smile on your face and just stare intently at them no matter what they say to you.

Reply, “How very interesting,” or “How so?” whenever a response seems to be required. Repeated often enough, these phrases will eventually fill them with self-doubt and discomfort and hopefully they’ll go annoy someone else.

You could also get a jump-start on the New Year’s Resolutionaries at the gym and go burn off that aggression in a way that won’t land you in jail.

Alternately, you could end every sentence with, “…as it is written” while carrying around a copy of Dianetics or some other such tome that spooks your family.

Any one of these approaches should buy you peace and quiet in no time.

Merry Christmas!

I'm gonna eat some worms / More on Microsoft Bob / Pug-nappers captured!

One of my coworkers said, with his usual impish grin, “These are for your Husband, so don’t eat them.”

Then he handed me a package of Mexican Spice Flavored Worms.

I assured him I could resist the temptation to snack on them and would make sure that they reached Husband un-opened.

Having said that, curiosity is getting the best of us. He’s given them to a number of people here and we may have to break open a package of the Chedder Cheese flavored worms and try them out.

I love the ingredients list. “Insect Larva, Seasoning.” And only 9 calories per serving (1.4 grams).

Here’s a link to the Food Insects website, a cooperative project with the University of Wisonconsin-Madison. I’m disappointed that they still haven’t published the piece on the nutrient content of the House Cricket, Acheta domesticus, but they do have A Concise Summary of the General Nutritional Value of Insects.

I’m more convinced than ever that this Microsoft Bob thing is an elaborate hoax. Microsoft wants us to think they are powerful enough to have wiped our memories, so we will fear them. It’s an elaborate conspiracy, a vast sleight of hand designed to make us believe that they possess vast and unimaginable technology to induce selective amnesia a la Men in Black.

Or maybe I’m just paranoid and we should move right along to this story in today’s Washington Post. (Don’t let Boris read this one, Faith).

“Pinched Pug Retrieved by Alexandria Police: Molly Is Safely Home After Being Snatched From Her Dog Sitter’s SUV; Suspect Charged”. And they all lived happily ever after. Except for the poor cop who solved the case, because other cops are going to be calling him “Ace Ventura” until the day he dies, and I bet it’s going to get very old very fast.

link roundup

editor’s note: So many of the links in this post were dead and taking forever to relink that I just stripped them all out for now

World-famous blogger Mike/Cooties has started a repository of Nigerian bank-scam spam (say that 5 times fast). It’s an interesting catalog of the variations he’s received. Thanks to Mike, I was reminded that Sandee has had her reconstructive breast surgery. It appears she’s recovering nicely. Go send some good thoughts her way, won’t you?

Eve has posted the saga of the demon wallpaper that I mentioned last week.

KD reminds us all that there are things far, far scarier than wallpaper in the world…namely a Jerry Springer opera. We have to get Faith to London to give us a full critique.

Katherine moved her journal to Not a Damsel and Sarah closed nisarant.net and re-emerged at creative-juices. It appears that the Ratbastard wasn’t actually abducted by aliens. According to MommaBastard and his beloved Michelle he’s just busy. No excuse, I shall continue to sulk until he returns.

Empty-handed has a hilarious description of a Spanish-language gameshow called “War of the Sexes” that has me scrambling through the Telemundo program guide to find out if it’s on here.

I’m deeply worried about xkot, who not only wore black socks and Birkenstocks out of his house but copped to it in his blog. Xkot led me back to Stacey, which was cool because I’d missed his story about barking at kids, which amused me greatly.

It was back to sad, however, when I saw the ain’t it cool news headline announcing the death of Rocky and Bullwinkle animation supervisor William “Tex” Henson. Henson also oversaw Underdog, which was one of my favorite cartoons. There’s not a lot of Underdog information on the web. ToonTracker has some and I found a rather disturbing quantity of Underdog fan fiction that someone wrote while heavily medicated.

Sex?

Samer is off on his annual world tour. He just dropped me a note from Amsterdam to let me know that he couldn’t access my site.

I’m blocked for sex. At a cybercafe in Amsterdam.

I’ll post an update when Samer updates his page, there’ll be lots of cool pictures (although he’ll be hard-pressed to top his in/famous whale penis photo). He said he’s post an update when he gets to London next week.