I’ve had ELO – Mr. Blue Sky stuck in my head for the past week and I don’t even care! I found myself singing it in the shower this morning and I never sing in the shower. The only problem here is that I know like, oh, three lines of the song. If I had a live-in girlfriend she’d totally be sick of hearing “Mr Blue Sky is living here today, hey hey hey” by now. And I’m also finding it irresistible not to grab my cat in the morning and sing to him “hey you with the pretty face, welcome to the human race.” Which makes no sense at all.

Play it. Just once. For me. Right-click and download if you’re so inclined.

Why am I in such a good mood lately? I have no idea. The eternal pessimist in me knows it’s all gonna come crashing down eventually. Next debilitating panic attack: T-minus a few days probably. The universe always has a way of kicking me in nuts when I’m actually having a stress-free streak. And when that happens it’s going to be some weird cosmic allusion to the end of the song that goes “Mr Blue you’ll get it right but soon comes Mr Night creepin’ over.”

Apparently my pessimism hasn’t gone unnoticed. I got another really nice unexpected gift today from Dennis. It’s a Pessimist’s Mug with a half-way line on it that includes the message “this glass is now half-empty.” I have to say, it’s very befitting of me.

Lastly, disgusting news for the day: A seventh-grader from Tampa recently did her science project on the cleanliness of fast food restaurants. She hypothesized that the toilet water from these restaurants would be more clean than the ice. And she was right. [shudder]. She found that 70% of the time the toilet water had lower levels of bacteria than the ice they put in your soda. [shudder again]. This totally supports all the bitching and moaning that I do at my favorite bar. Jeff 1, B-Town 0. Some of the stuff I’ve seen is frightening … and that’s at any bar in the area. The way bars wash their glassware gives the word cursory a whole new meaning. I hate shaking hands at the bar because people are dirty, but I guess now I can’t drink the booze either. :(

Regarding Ed’s comments: Would a “bad boy” drink his green tea from a cup that looks like this?

Uh, don’t bother reading this … just skip to the last paragraph.

Yesterday started out in panic mode and then turned out to be a REALLY GOOD DAY. Or at least I had thought that right up until 11PM. What really happened was that a lot of little things added up to make a really good day and then I got a dumb inopportune memo at eleven o’clock that screwed it all up.

I started the day in panic mode because I came into the office with a show-stopping bug in my code and an impending deadline that was fourteen hours away. It looked like it was going to be one of those pound-your-head-against-the-wall scenarios until I found a fix. Surprisingly enough it turned out to be a dumb mistake on my part and really cheered me up when I could see the light at the end of my programming tunnel. I still had at least ten hours of work ahead of me, but it was reassuring to be able to accurately quantify the rest of the programming effort. In fact, after I found the bug I was so damn happy that I almost posted ELO - Mr Blue Sky on my website. It really felt like a beautiful new day.

Sun is shinin’ in the sky,
There ain’t a cloud in sight
It’s stopped rainin’
Everybody’s in a play
And don’t you know
It’s a beautiful new day.

I don’t really mind programming for ten hours straight, but it is nice to have some mental companions while doing it. Which is exactly why I had a good day yesterday. First of all, I had a really funny Howard (NSFW) to listen to which helps immensely. What other job can you do while laughing so hard you almost pee your pants? Yep, that’s mine :)

I also got another unexpected Diet Green Tea which made me happy.* I don’t know what the soda guy’s problem is but we seem to end up in the same situation every Tuesday. I think he’s purposely putting the diet tea behind the regular stuff.

* I just had this dreadful self-revelation about how I’ve resisted our corporate motivational FISH! program for so long and am now finding myself actually buying into it. (One of the FISH! Principles in the FISH! FILOSOPHY is to “make their day.”)

So with my Howard, Diet Lipton Green Tea, and programming momentum, things were really starting to look up. In retrospect it was probably because I was focused on something other than my usual obsessions, but it was good nonetheless. Then I got an email from Joe Purdy. Apparently he’s playing a show in London and I’ve actually been thinking of going to London lately to meet up with an old friend. Unfortunately the show is tomorrow and I don’t think I’m going to make it, but the good part was that I discovered that his website has all his albums in a fancy schmancy Flash player. So that made the rest of my day cause I had a whole lot of Joe Purdy to listen to.

I left the office around 10:30 and was really looking forward to sitting on the couch and doing nothing. To my dismay there was a memo slid under my door that informed me that someone would be coming by tomorrow to install a water meter on my hot water heater. This water heater is located in my closet and I’ve literally been hoarding crap in my closet for the past year. After reading the memo I just stared at my bedroom closet and cursed for a good five minutes. Three hours and five full trash bags later I finally had a clean bedroom and closet. It sucked hard, but it had to get done sometime. So overall I guess the day was ok.

Right now I’m considering not posting this cause even the self-absorbed egomaniac in me doesn’t find even a modicum of interest in my reiteration of what happened yesterday. I really could have put more effort into it. Oh well, at least you got ELO out of it.

I was reading Dooce today* and she’s currently spending some time in Amsterdam. In regards to the language she says:

“I have the overwhelming urge to speak English with a Dutch accent, and I have to consciously stop myself from doing it. I imagine that it would be cute to, oh, absolutely no one.”

Reading this comment instantly induced a flashback to my Eastern European trip. During that time I spent twelve days sightseeing, drinking, and sometimes (innocently) sleeping with crazy aussies. It was the closest you could get to being immersed in a culture without actually visiting the country. So instead of picking up a Czech accent I would catch myself talking with an Australian accent.** Like Dooce I had to consciously stop doing it, and even then I maintained subtleties like phrasing, emphasis, and tempo. I’m sure it sounded ridiculous … actually I know it sounded ridiculous … because sometimes I’d talk to these two girls from New York and we’d all be talking to each other with dumb Australian accents.

* Many of you have commented on my usage of the word “nubbin”. To fill you in, I got it from Dooce. Secret’s out!
** This was of course an unintentional accent, unlike the fake Boston accent I often hear at my favorite bar.

Please help settle a bet. Which is the better snow animal?

Thanks

I’ve been drinking a lot of green tea lately. I kinda got tired of coffee and figured at least the antioxidants in tea make it more desirable than my afternoon Diet Dr Pepper. I’ve adopted a ritual of sorts with hot green tea in the morning and iced green tea in the afternoon. And now you can imagine my consternation when I find out that the soda machine is all out of my Lipton Diet Green Tea with Citrus. I made a big stink of it around the office and finally the machine was restocked, BUT, the soda guy put the Diet Green Tea with Citrus BEHIND the Regular Green Tea with Citrus. Let me reiterate: The Diet Green Tea is currently under embargo by Regular Green Tea. This is all very serious to me. Which brings me to a really nice unexpected Valentines Day gift that I got today.

I stumble into the office in my obligatory red shirt* and a friend presents me with a bottle of Diet Green Tea with Citrus. Sweet! For some reason I blurted out “you’re the best!” which I probably shouldn’t have done because of reasons forthcoming. It almost seems silly, but if you’re a twenty-something year old blond girl in my office, I’m not allowed to talk to you. Or at least I feel very uncomfortable doing it. I guess it’s because of a prior office relationship indiscretion. I use the word indiscretion very loosely because I still maintain that I handled the situation professionally. Either way, even with no intentions whatsoever, I’m vetoed from talking to anyone that I might find remotely attractive. Yep, that’s me, the big mean heartbreaker. Don’t even think of glancing in my direction lest you fall victim to my Powers Of Medusa. (Or Siren Powers, you choose). The fact remains that I have no intentions at all of being more than friends and I can’t be “just friends”. phhpt. We went out for sushi today for lunch and we literally had to strategize our exit out of the office. The most absurd part is that for the first month or two while I was actively keeping my distance, people were walking around the office openly proclaiming their attraction for her. So I’m over it. No more pussyfooting around. Reputation be damned.

* don’t ask; just think Dilbert

A while ago a friend brought a bunch of old books into the office to give away. I’ve got this weird relationship with books: I hate them. But, I love reading on the internet. I could sit at Wikipedia all day and just read link to link. I love reading people’s opinions and narratives, but when they’re on paper, it puts me to sleep. But I digress … I took one of the books home that was titled “Writers Inc: A Student Handbook for Writing and Learning.” It’s targeted at dumb high school kids, but I found it to be a goldmine for my cavernous cobweb filled head. For so long I’ve been doing this stupid “writing” thing but knew there had to be some strategies of writing beyond “stream of consciousness” After paging through it, I made a semi-private resolution last night to “show, don’t tell” more on my website. I’m sorry to say it looks like I’m a Big Fat Failure after today’s suite of entries. Try again next time. It’s just so hard to resist pounding my tirades into you via “telling.” *

* and thanks to my public school education I still don’t know how to correctly couple punctuation with quotation marks. I guess I know how, but this period looks so “weird.” (and WOW, how metaphysical was that last sentence? FREAKY!)

Do you know what’s a cool word? The word “thunder.” When you mash the word “thunder” up with other words it turns “thunder” into “uberthunder”. Like “thunder-thighs” and “welcome to the thunder-dome bitch!” I had to chuckle a little every time the weather guy said the word “thundersnow” this past weekend too. It kind of reminds me of the time my friend Karen and I talked about how cool the word “hardcore” was. It spices up any activity. Like hardcore bowling. And hardcore cooking. What an awesome word. I always thought that James Lipton was a quack, but maybe he and Bernard Pivot were onto something with that “favorite word” crap. GRAVITAS!*

* kudos from me to you if you get the GRAVITAS reference. If you’re a girl, I’ll marry you.

Great things lately:

The Office - It still stands as the second funniest show on TV behind Arrested Development, but currently ranks as the number one comedy that’s got me emotionally invested. It’s impossible to watch that show and not go nuts over the subtlety and intelligence of the humor. Ingenious actors. Even better writers.

Matisyahu - King Without a Crown - I can’t get this song out of my head. For some reason “Yay God” songs turn me off, but I can honestly say that I like and can feel this one. It doesn’t drop the ball on depth or coolness. I think my issue with pseudo religious/Christian bands (Lifehouse, P.O.D., Creed) is that they just come across to me as being way too trite. Yes, I get the message. “Yay God.” But isn’t there more substance behind the hackneyed message? (I very well could be wrong here cause I’m largely ignorant to any type of pop religious music, but in my experiences it holds true)

Irritating things lately:

Text messages - For some reason my phone just refuses to send text messages sometimes. I’ll get up from my desk and I’ll suddenly have six messages come through as soon as I turn the corner out of my cube. Its almost as if my phone just decides to take a power nap instead of sending and receiving messages. Its either that or I work beside a Bajoran wormhole that intermittently opens up and swallows my cellular reception. Dunno, but it’s annoying.

Another thing that bugs me is that curse words aren’t included in the standard T9 phone dictionary. Granted, once I type it out its added to my predictive text dictionary, but its still a pain. Especially if it’s a word like shit. The “S” is ok, but the “H” and “I” are on the same button so you gotta type it, wait, then hit the button again for the second letter. I’m usually texting these profanities at the bar and I can assure you that I invariably hit that second button before the first one sinks in and then I’m all flustered because I’m probably trying to send a quick text message between rounds of megatouch.* (whoa that was a run-on sentence) I’m short on time here people! Lets focus on making text messaging less arduous. If facilitating booty texting isn’t incentive enough, I don’t know what is.

* and speaking of megatouch, that’s a whole ‘nuther realm of double-tap madness. Usually when you hear an “arrgh” coming from the machine it means that someone has just been stung buy the old double-tap screw up. You can actually see the accidentally skipped card pass by in slow motion but you have no control over its fate. Tap tap it’s gone.

I was paging through my hipster certified Moleskine notebook at work today to make sure I didn’t miss any tasks that I was supposed to get done. I use this book write down everything from boring meeting notes to goofy marketing speak I hear (like “massage the data”). In my review I happened upon some interesting tasks that I was not previously aware that I assigned to myself. They include “See how I look in tights - 12:30“, “Review Bareback Mountain for PGN - 8PM“, and “Wet jock contest - 8PM Woody’s“. Needless to say I think I need to get a new less-gay secretary.

Counting of the comments has been fixed.  It was an incompatability with my old comment spam system and the new WordPress 2.0 application.