Archives For September 2003

safe harbour

September 4, 2003 — Leave a comment

my boss is out today and i have fuck all to do. sweet. and no i didn`t kill her nor did i arrange to have her killed.

i continue to be on an even keel, even with all the bitching and moaning i`ve been doing. i don`t feel overwhelmed by it all. i`ve got problems but for the next couple of days at least they`re not going to get the best of me.

still unable to track down a non professional volleyball club, i`m thinking about doing tai chi. i don`t want to learn to hurt any in a physical manner, i think i have far too much experience at mental and emotional damage to add physical to my list of sins.

my thoughts are a little helter-skelter this morning, bear with me while i sort it out. i`m trying to budget money, i don`t have. it`s the fourth of the month and i don`t have money to get me through the weekend, far less the rest of the month.

i try not to stress about money. i try to work on the principle that when i need it, it will come to me. but days like today trying to plan out bill payments and paying what i owe, i wonder if i need to be more aggressive with the people that owe me.

i was up last night ironing [no, not for me, for my daughter, i`m firmly of the if it can`t be worn out of the wash then it should be, i loathe ironing]. when i was finished i had a back pain at which point i realised i need to creeping up to the 300lb mark again. that`s not good. most of the weight i`ve put on in the last 7 years is on my upper body. i got the back pains to prove it. my lifestyle is too sedentry. i can make all the excuses i want about the gym but at the end of the day, i need to work on losing this weight.

i don`t feel comfortable with it. i need to do something about it for me. not for the fuckwits that are quick to point out how much weight i`ve put on since they`ve seen me last [if you were a friend you`d see me on a regular basis], always quick with suggestion with what i should do. fucking idiots. do i care what you think? no [well maybe a little if it irritates me this much]

i`m not particularly thin skinned but people that don`t know me, harping about my fucking weight and how i dress piss me to fuck off. i dress how i please because i can. i can work whatever i`m wearing. from dirty jeans, to a suit, to a skirt.

time for me to get to work.

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i was just talking to vic about a list of actors who i would not mind ever seeing on screen [big or small] ever again and it got me to thinking. is there a definitive list of rich and [in]famous people who should just fuck off from our consciousness?

actually it doesn`t matter if there is, i have my own list and i boldy offer it to you. bearing in mind this is a first draft and i`ll add to the list as names come to me, not to mention the cruel thoughts as well.

john travolta, nicholas cage, tom cruise, tom hanks, mel gibson, ben affleck, jennifer lopez get out of the movie making business. don`t act, don`t produce, don`t direct, don`t do fuck all, but stay home and spend your fucking money.

close contenders in the hollywood category include samuel l. jackson and colin farrell. i mean has there been a movie in the last year that these two fuckers haven`t been in. there is such a thing as over exposure.

in the music category, i`m going to give the easy targets a miss, you know who they are and i know who they are and focus my loathing and rage at bands like metallica, the rolling stones, sting, paul fucking mccartney, michael `you can`t have to pay off that many boys` jackson. you all have more money than god, fuck off and leave us alone. the rolling stones in particular, i`m sure all of them have grandchildren, great-grand even, stay home with them, we do not need to see you tired wrinkly asses on tour anymore. have you not heard of growing old gracefully?

whew. i enjoyed that. i feel i`m going to be revisiting this topic frequently.

so i didn’t kill her

September 3, 2003 — Leave a comment

i didn`t even maim her. she`s not worth going to jail over.

actually my thinking behind stabbing her in the eye with a sharpie is that she`d die of embarrassment, i did manage to finish all of the stuff, although that`s partially because fedex, never showed. i came home read a few journals, generally passed the evening idly.

the power just went out and it`s amazing how much quieter it`s gotten and how bright it is outside, the moon is up so it`s pretty nice out.

the heat however is unbearable. unlike our brethren further north, most of us [well at least my age] in this country have grown up with power outages and brown outs.

i remember there was a whole school year where my mother would iron my uniforms in the office, because there wasn`t likely to be any electricity when we got home.  i think i was about eight or nine, i was still in primary school, that much i know and we would leave the office and come home to total darkness. we would sit by lamp light and eat dinner and play scrabble and then go to bed early. there would be power in the morning when were leaving home, but somehow it didn`t actually matter in the daylight.

it`s rather interesting to sit here in the darkness, the room lit only by the display of the laptop reminiscing about my childhood, while enjoying the advances of technology and practising my touch typing.

stabbing morons in the fucking eye.

was i child a molesting priest in my last life? what did i to be saddled with this sisyphian task of tolerating this woman.

i suppose you`re wondering what she did this time.

well she`s wants to fedex some elements of the presentation that were not ready for her to leave with. that`s all well and good, but here comes the moron crackhead behaviour, she calls fedex and then proceeds to make a mass of changes to existing work.

and calling me every five minutes to ask if it`s done yet, does not fucking help

how can one person

September 3, 2003 — Leave a comment

cause some much stress to an office full of people.

this woman is back less than an hour and already she`s upset the equilibrium of everyone in the office, individually and as a whole. jesus, this woman is annoying. this does not bode well for her.

back with more updates as my aggravation levels rise

a story worth repeating

September 2, 2003 — Leave a comment

CUSTOMER SERVICE

This has got to be one of the funniest I`ve heard of in a long time. I think this guy should have been promoted, not fired. This is a true story from the WordPerfect Help line which was transcribed from a recording monitoring the customer care department. Needless to say, the Help Desk employee was fired however, he is currently suing the WordPerfect organization for “Termination without Cause.”

This is the actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee (now I know why they record these conversations)

“Rich Hall computer assistance; may I help you?”

“Yes, well, I`m having trouble with WordPerfect.”

“What sort of trouble?”

“Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.”

“Went away?”

“They disappeared.”

“Hmmm.

So what does your screen look like now?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It`s a blank; it won`t accept anything when I  type.”

“Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?”

“How do I tell?”

“Can you see the C: prompt on the screen?”

“What`s a sea-prompt?”

“Never mind, can you move your cursor around the screen?”

“There isn`t any cursor: I told you, it won`t accept anything I type.”

“Does your monitor have a power indicator?”

“What`s a monitor?”

“It`s the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV.

Does it have a little light that tells you when it`s on?”

“I don`t know.”

“Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it`s plugged into the

wall.”

“Yes, it is.”

“When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one?”

“No.”

“Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.”

“Okay, here it is.”

“Follow it for me, and tell me if it`s plugged securely into the back of your computer.”

“I can`t reach.”

“Uh huh. Well, can you see if it is?”

“No.”

“Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?”

“Oh, it`s not because I don`t have the right angle it`s because it`s dark.”

“Dark?”

“Yes, the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from

the window.”

“Well, turn on the office light then.”

“I can`t.”

“No? Why not?”

“Because there`s a power failure.”

“A power…….a power failure?…. Aha, Okay, we`ve got it licked now.

Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff your computer came in?”

“Well, yes, I keep them in the closet.”

“Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it

was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.”

“Really? Is it that bad?”

“Yes, I`m afraid it is.”

“Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?”

“Tell them you`re too fuckin` stupid to own a computer.”

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i just got off the phone with a rather nice lady at the embassy in barbados, she was very helpful, well as helpful as she could be.

apparently my application is in the ins/bcis/whatever office in santo domingo and they are short staffed. which means my application could be sitting on a pile but they wouldn`t know, because they don`t have enough people to check.

in the words of a joke my wife gave me “how nice”

i guess this means we need to find someone high enough on the food chain to take an interest in our plight.

i`m not pissed, i just need to figure what we can do now. i`m almost to abandon living in the us with vic and just find somewhere that is willing to take us and our brood. anywhere right now. just as long as we`re together.

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Pissing on fires

September 2, 2003 — Leave a comment

well i ran my first production meeting today. 25 minutes total, none of the usual dithering and idle fucking talk. now it`s just a matter of putting out the stupid little conflagrations that insufficient instructions tend to start. my boss is out but, left a set of incomplete instructions, including booking a double page ad, the problem is no one is around to approve the budget and none of his underlings have any fucking clue as to what is going on.

that`s been shelved until i get better instructions. i`m also debating resigning when my boss gets back tomorrow. it may just encourage to get off my fucking ass and take control of my situation. but then i`ll also be broke and without a fucking job, it`s not like the freelance work has been piled up at my door.

we shall see

i`m back out to work today, i`m fighting the flu, i`m frustrated by bureaucracy, but my head hits the pillow and i`m in the midst of this elaborate fantasy which continues to make me all tingly. surrendering control is the major theme and it`s been something that`s been going through my mind a lot lately.

i started in on the skilled immigrant paperwork and of course it`s not as simple as the make it out on the website, anyone out there have an experience with this?

i should get cracking, school opened back today, which means the traffic has started again as well as the dramas in getting transportation to get to work.

i`ll be back later with progress reports.