August 2006 Archives

The Lazy has me.

The Lazy is an evil creature who gnaws upon the neck of your Creative Beast and looks a lot like a small rabid yorkie with a bad overbite. It's vicious enough as to be annoying, but small and consistent enough that you find yourself becoming "used to the idea" and just settling into comfortable, self-induced ignorance.

Kind of like what happens when you work in a cubicle.

It's a self-preservation thing.

The Lazy is as hard to escape as a cubicle. It's like a tick. If you don't pull on it just right, it'll break off at the neck and just make you itch and itch...

It's real evil is that it keeps the Creative Beast distracted so that the rest of you finds stupid meaningless crap to fill the gap that is left when the Beast has nothing to say.

Video games, for instance.

Okay, they're not stupid, but they're not necessary, especially when I should be doing something else.

This particular Lazy is apparently a pretty strong one. My poor Creative Beast is pretty much in a corner watching reality TV and pretending really hard it's not there.

It doesn't even like reality TV.

I'm having the hard time beating this Lazy off. I tried hitting with a stick, but that just seems to make it scratch itself. I'm thinking a crowbar and a lead pipe...

I will prevail.

I better.

I have a lot to do before Halloween.

Damn, Lazies. They always invade at the wrong times...

I went to the other side of town today and by the holy gods the Halloween Store was setting up for business!

I thought I was going to pass out from bliss.

Yes, my friends, I am all about the Halloween.

So, I've been lazy with my paper mache these last few weeks, but I have a particular project that has been in the wings for quite some time, and now, with Halloween breathing in my ear, it's calling to me.

The masks will continue, but Scratch (Yes, he has a name) will begin anew. And, with any amount of hope, he'll be done by mid-October.

He's part of my "what would the bumps in the night look like" ideas. If he works, who knows what else I'll come up with?

And, you know, since I've mentioned him here he has to happen, but he is the Halloween project I wish to have done this year.

It'll help that my mother is coming Monday and will be taking up the computer room as her room so I won't be distracted by CGI things-that-must-be-killed.

Either way...Halloween is coming! Give me a big old wOOt!

Which also means means the goblin mask will be finished soon.

Yee-friggin'-ha!

Woo!

Again, the niece is damn cute.



And, her big sister is just as cute if not cuter


It's like a black hole of cute, I'm telling you.

Okay, I'm still here, but I've been in serious geek out mode. Probably because I decided to change up my career path a bit starting with getting my Microsoft certifications. From there, I'll probably learn some programming to see if I like it, but you know, Todd showed me the guts of a computer last night, and I just wanted to mess with them. I'm thinking I might go towards hardware. We'll see.

There has been nothing creative going on. As I have said, I have been geeking out. I have been spending quite a bit of time killing things. After the last few weeks I've had, I deserve to kill some things. Granted, they're CGI rendered computer things, but they are things that are being killed nonetheless.

My other obsession has been "Rome".

Ya'll. Seriously. Wow.

Back story: supposedly a bunch of historians and archeologists got seriously fed up with Holly-Rome. I think, if I remember correctly, "Gladiator" was the last straw. Mainly because Ridley Scott, though we love him, hired a bunch of historians so his movie could be "correct". Yeah, well, when they would try to correct him he asked them to make history fit his movie. They were not happy. So, as I was saying, a bunch of historians and archeologists got together with HBO to make a historically accurate representation of Rome.

And, they weren't bloody kidding.

Wow.

There are no scrubbed cobble streets or white togas here. Charleton Heston would have been scared.

It's an excellent series, but there is lots of violence, cruel things done to slaves, sex, naked people, sex, rampant disease, sex, war, intrigue, fist fights in the senate, and sex. It is not ever acceptable viewing for anyone under the age of 18. But, I gotta tell you, that was Rome. It wasn't clean; it wasn't sanitized; and its walls were damn-well covered with graffiti that would make an L.A. street gang blush.

They're making the second season, although I hear that they never thought the first season would take off so well and were only expecting just to do it that once, especially since it cost more than HBO ever spent on a series. Yeah, well, I can say I'm not surprised. Holly-Rome might have been exciting, but you know, reality is far stranger, more violent, weirder, and more interesting than Hollywood fiction. I'm not surprised in the least people took to it.

In fact, the Boyfriend calls for dinner and "Rome". I must heed the call!

I leave you with Natalie Lea (pronounced "Lee-ah). My new niece born last Tuesday.



The cuteness is overwhelming.

Although, I'm actually starting to think it was the papers I wrote that lost me the job.

The thing is there's a certain voice to research papers, depending on what they are about. Desk procedures are very technical, very A to B to C, boring, to the point, and instructive. Research papers are spitting up information without trying to sound like stereo instructions so the reader doesn't fall into a coma.

Now, maybe it's just me trying to make me feel better, but I'm thinking that it might have been a little unfair to judge the applicants on research papers they wrote in school. (Although, I did write one on Bird Flu for a more technical bent.) I'm thinking that it would have been better if they had asked us to write up a bunch of desk procedures and use those. That's what they were after anyway.

I don't know. I gave the Bird Flu paper to our analyst because she wanted to read it and learn a little about the disease for some stuff she's doing at the office. I asked her to please tell me if it was an unreadable mess. The last thing I want is to be like that person in the karaoke bar who thinks he can sing but really, really can't. Either way, there's a part of me thinking that they may have approached this thing wrong and maybe it's okay I didn't get the job because I'm not sure that I was fairly judged in the long run.

I feel I write really good research papers. I've had professors ask to keep my papers. But, I also feel that I write differently depending on the subject. They had us do one desk procedure for a test. I think if they wanted to be sure we could do the job they should have assigned us a task. For instance, go to another department and learn about a task you've never done and write a procedure on it. That's what the job entailed. Research papers prove you can go get the information, but writing a manual that teaches someone how to process a claim is way different than giving the statistics on bird flu. To me, at least.

Like I said, I might be just trying to make myself feel better.

I guess I could have done that instead of giving them research papers. Too late now, but I guess it's a thought just in case another tech writing job opens up. The analyst wants me to help her write the procedures for our department, and I get to keep those. I think if another job opens up, I'm going to go find out about another job and write up a procedure on it just to show I can.

And, if THAT doesn't work, then obviously I need to find something else to do.

We shall see.

Girl's night. Wine. Ice Cream. Enough estrogen in the air to choke a bull. Oh, yeah. That is what I need.

Poor, Todd. He says he's going to hide. I hope he can make it to the bedroom, because you know we're all going to be, like, 13 years old again and shout about the ickiness of boys and throw pillows at him.

Just not...here.

I'm trying to figure out what to do now. Todd says to keep looking for a new job, but there isn't anything out there that isn't a pay cut. (Same job, different pay, apparently.) The economy sucks all kinds of monkey balls, and I'm stuck working the job I hate with the people I'd rather strangle learning crap I don't want to learn hoping for better to come along that will inevitably go to someone else.

Ugh.

I do know that come October I'm taking every ounce of vacation I have. I'm thinking of taking a day or two when Mom comes in at the end of the month, but the rest of it will be taken in October. I'm tired and I need a break.

I tell you, I just wanted to walk away yesterday. I just wanted to walk out the door.

But, I've decided to not do that. However, I've also decided I don't care about my current job. I'm tired of working my ass off for nothing. The last girl in our cube lied on her time sheet, called the boss a liar, slept on the job, and sold bootleg DVDs on company property but was never fired. She ended up quitting years later after her and the analyst got into a fight. Her ass should have been fired five times over. Ask me if I'm going to work my ass off just to be pigeon-holed. I'm tired of working so hard for nothing. If the boss doesn't care, I don't care.

It's the universe's way of telling me to go back to school. I have no desire to go back to school. I have $37,000 in student loans because I was on my own for school except for that one semester Mom was able to help me out. (What would I do without her? Dad never even offered, even when he was buying a new truck and a big screen TV.) I don't want to add to that knowing there's no guarantee I'll get the job I want, especially since I'm in the South and those jobs don't happen for EIGHT YEARS AT A TIME. (I'd move, except there's Todd. I won't leave Todd.) Besides, I'm sick to death of school.

I don't know what to do at the moment. All I want to do is stay drunk and sleep. Tomorrow, we're watching a movie with friends. Friday is girl's night with wine and ice cream. Maybe by Monday I'll have a clear head. No guarantees, though.

Thanks again for the good vibes, ya'll. I need them.

I hope to be back and creative eventually. There's a birthday coming up, at least.

I didn't get the job.

Eight years of trying and two weeks of preparation for nothing.

I've been crying off and on since one o'clock.

My one shot, and I blew it.

I don't expect to be around for a while. I'm pretty damned depressed.

I worked so damn hard for this...they have no idea...

No one wanted this job more than me. No one.

Eight years of trying but screwed because the damned degree didn't exist when I graduated.

You know, because of stupid circumstances I keep getting the same crappy jobs over and over again, and of course, they only see those jobs and refuse to give me a chance at the job I know I can do fantastically well drunk and in my sleep.

I hope they hired an illiterate who screws them over.

Thanks for the wishes of good luck. I appreciate them.

I'm going to go be sick now.