- Thursday, February 14, 2008
It Arrived by Mail.
Why don't they have "parental controls" for standard land-line telephones? My good friend, Tim, has once again volunteered me for something which I would normally avoid. At some point last week, he answered my phone, and on my behalf, agreed to be a participant in the Nielsen TV Ratings. When it arrived, he opened the envelope, took the five dollars that they pay you to fill out the diaries, and absconded with the money.Problem - Tim volunteered for this. It is bad enough that he does NOT LIVE HERE. Not only does he volunteer (me) for this... but he also LEAVES TOWN this Saturday. So, he gives these diaries to me and says "here. you have to fill these out and send them in by ---."
Protest? Yes. Yes I did protest. I'll fill it out, because from what I know, he probably did not identify himself as himself, but rather gave the impression that he was indeed a resident of the home above the age 16. Now, they are here, America is counting on me (against my will or otherwise) to fill these things out. I am sure that the Nielsen people anticipate a percentage of the surveys not returning, but I feel obligated to complete the tedious thing and turn it in on time.
I took part in the Nielsen ratings in 1987. While I recognize the significance of the survey, it was a pain in the ass to fill in the information.
Labels: big televsions, miscellaneous topics.
pero @ 5:37 PM | œ | 0 comments
Last Words... (at least for February)
In an effort to get as close to the fifty thousand words as possible by the end of this month in celebration of FebNoWriMo, I am simply typing whatever comes to mind, after which I will at the very least organize the thoughts into some vaguely logical order and then publish at the last minute.I also realized (actually I realized this very early on) that I could avoid contractions and gain words. (You know, can't, won't don't become can not, do not and will not). Actually, I think that can not is used as cannot - for whatever reason. It is the only one that they do that with as far as I know).
One tool I have utilized in my (weak) efforts during FebNoWriMo has been this copy and paste word counter. This simiple Java script kit allows you to paste text into a form field and calculate the number of words used in it. I am providing a link not only to share it with you, but also to use up a few more words. I am indeed a cheating bastard. [LINK]
And now on to things that are not filed under the topic of FebNoWriMo:
Website related but I also realize that I have not done much work on the redesign of the site (specifically the Stories and Rants; most of which are still in the old page style from 2004. While I am ashamed of this on some level, I am not affected by it enough to sit down and finish all of it yet.
I have been working extra hours lately; picking up shifts wherever I find that they are open for grabs. People always want time off from work, and usually I am willing to take that time off their hands. This also puts me at an advantage later when I want time off and all of those bastards owe me time.
My eating habits, while they are (extremely) far from what they should be, have improved a great deal in the last week. To put it the best, (with as little detail as possible considering all of that is stuff that in general people just do not tell complete strangers) -- I have not felt quite 'right' lately. So, I am pulling all the old-school tricks that our Grannies knew about that are directly food related.
In the mornings I have oatmeal for breakfast. Generally I arrive at work around fifteen minutes early every day. This gives me time to get some maple instant oatmeal made (hot water out of the Culligiain man's handy dandy water "cooler". (I find it amusing that some of the people call it the "cooler", when it has cold and hot taps (in fashionable red and blue indicator colors).
When I made my oatmeal Friday, people outside the office I was currently occupying (someone else's desk) were all remarking, "I smell maple syrup!" After the third person, instead of simply saying, "it's my oatmeal", I replied, "Yeah i'm eating pancakes in here." and she actually came in and said REALLY?
I've eaten yogurt lately - daily in fact. It took me a while to find some that wasn't color-enhanced. If you have not read about the yogurt with pink color thing yet - you may not want to if you love very pink yogurt (and other foods that have a specific red food coloring.)
I have found that (if you have one nearby) Trader Joe's makes really good yogurt. (Thanks to L.T. .for the tip on that by the way). If you are unable to find that, Danon has a line called Danon Naturals that is really good and has no artificial looking color. (Keep in mind that I have not done any research and it may have this particular coloring in it anyway... but it does not appear to have it.
I try - but do not always succeed at eating an apple every day. I manage to do this five or six days out of the week. I still have a lot of room for improvement as far as all of this goes.
Anything Else, Please?
I have an extremely bad headache today. Its location is directly in the middle of my forehead. It has been with me ALL. DAY. LONG.
Hopefully it will go away soon... and, with that, since there is no way that I can possibly continue to type to reach my goal of 50,000 words for FebNoWriMo,
- 742 words in this post...
Labels: Brain dead, FebNoWriMo, headache, Loser, miscellaneous topics.
pero @ 8:20 PM | œ | 0 comments
Desultory Logic
Actual proof that my brain is way to cluttered with too much meaningless crap, this post was written in 'real time' - as the thoughts entered my mind. But it passed the time while I wrote it, and now it is here to waste yours.Rhetorically Speaking...
I've had it. Really I have. I am now at the point that I have completely run out of patience for people's shit. There. I said it. Yes. I said it. I meant, it too.Oh, the humanity. People, people everywhere. Existing seemingly for the sole purpose of annoying the hell out of me. With their walking. With their phone manners. With their driving. With their rudeness. With their lack of compassion for anything. The human race, in general, is spiraling down at an alarming rate. What Type of Happy Horse Shit is THAT?
Pushy, rude and impatient.
So, what exactly does it mean when one runs out of patience with people - because they are all so impatient?
Such is my luck...
9:52 pm - perotheus: am I booted?
9:55 pm - That while I am in the middle of two conversations that are actually interesting and with people I want to continue talking to, my DSL company fails me. My connection has dropped; leaving me internetless. I reset everything on the network and of course that did not work.
10:25 pm - So I cleaned the bathroom... still no connection. It's been half an hour. The last time it did this I was having a meaningful and seemingly problem solving conversation with J. While Instant Messages may not be the best medium for such important conversation, it does not cost either party any additional money to use, and it allows each person to think before speaking; so it works well for us at times.
I have reset the hub, the wireless router and the modem; yet I have no internet at all - wired or otherwise. The local network functions properly, I am able to connect to the computer(s) in the other room (wired and wirelessly). This means that it is all on the DSL company to straighten out their SH!T.
So that leaves me typing in small but reliable Text Edit, waiting for DSL Co. to work so I can actually publish my nonsensical post.
Being naturally pessimistic, I do not expect DSL Co. to even notice the problem before I give up and go to sleep. I could call them and alert them to the issue, but that would require me to get out of bed and locate the number, just to wait on hold for who knows how long before I reach some guy in Bangalore who forces me to troubleshoot my network interface card and their software (which I have bypassed and used PPPoE instead). If I were to divulge that bit of information, I could expect them to get out their BOB soapbox, being "technicians", and inform me that doing such a thing is why the internet is no longer working for me. This would be because the guy would honestly just not know any better.
I have attempted twice more to reset the modem, without success. The bathroom is clean and germ free. The room has cooled considerably in the last hour. My room smells of sandalwood and chamomille, which has me feeling fairly relaxed despite the service interruption.
10:45 pm - The nighttime heartburn is setting in (normal) and I am taking that as my cue that it is now officially time to give up and just go to sleep. In roughly four hours I will wake up and be done sleeping. Then I will try the internet again. It had better work.
I have tried to sleep and failed. I will have to find some way to pass the time (internetless). This really sucks. yawning but not tired enough to sleep. I know this because typically I will pass out within 10 - 15 minutes of laying down and concentrating on my breathing.
Yes, that would be meditation and I do it all the time. I have since I was a child - before I had any idea what it really was. I remember when I was seven or eight, laying in bed and listening to the sound of the blood pushing through my body. Wrsh Wrsh Wrsh. I'd breathe deeply and slowly and imagine I was somewhere else. I think I started doing this because I absolutely hated having to lie so still (fear of getting into trouble for not staying in bed). I'd imagine I was living back when dinosaurs lived. I had to be smart, and fast so I could survive. I lived up on a cliff in a cave that was on some mountain. (Heavily influenced visually by a show by Sid and Marty Kropft - The Land of the Lost.
Sometimes, I would pretend I was on an island; stranded and having to learn how to find food and use the resources available to me.
Most of the time these "adventures" were something I believed would program my dreams. I would concentrate on something and hope to dream about it so that I would not have any dreams about things that I feared. (I think.).
I remember when I was in Junior High, I had a dream that I was walking down the street and the police came. They were going to arrest me for something that I did not do (vandalism or something) and I was so afraid of the concept of going to jail that I forced myself awake.
I remember other recurring nightmares I had when I was younger. One of them involved "Guy Smiley" the muppet (the news cast guy from sesame Street). He wore a crown on his head like a King and had a red robe with fur lining the edge and he had a Walking Stick - and he had tied me to a pole and blindfolded me. He then ordered a LOT of rats to appear and told them to bite me until I was gone.
Another recurring dream involved the basement of my grandmother's house. She had two brass beds down there elevated on cinder blocks in case of a flood. The basement was not exactly inhabitable but for some reason she had it set up like guest quarters. (that part is all real) I was afraid of her basement; I worried that they would make me sleep down there by myself. In my dream, I was in one of the beds and a spider came crawling up the blanket. It had a large round body that resembled translucent plastic. You could see light passing through its body; but you could not see through its body. I watched it climb towards me and when it was close enough for me to reach it, I pinched its body with my thumb and one finger. This caused its plastic looking body to break (like cheap plastic bubbles you get in a gum machine with a prize inside). HUNDREDS of tiny flea sized babies scrambled out and completely covered my arm, which they chewed until they made a large hole (my six year old mind had no idea what people really looked like inside so it was hollow and dark rather than full of blood and tissue).
It's funny to analyze the things that frightened me as a child and compare them to my feelings about those same items as an adult. While rats do not frighten me, I associate them with disease. I have a very strong dislike for insects and arachnids. I do not like the way an insect's jointed robotic legs feel on my skin. I despise their alien appearance, their odd shaped heads and eerie glass eyes. If I had to deal with them directly I would be able to push them out of my way to do what needed to be done but if I can avoid them, I usually will.
12:01 - still internetless. Those idiot people. This is probably a planned outage - but sadly I don't use their email address as a primary one so I didn't get a notice if it was planned.
I have to work Monday, (which is now here officially). I don't really want to attempt work on no sleep - feeling crappy like I do. The crappy feeling is from the Latte that Starbucks screwed up and got my order wrong. This is the third or fourth time that the Soy Latte has tasted way too sweet. I realize the vanilla soy is sweetened but the drink I got today had a lot more than the sugar contained in the Soy milk. This is the fourth time - involving three different locations that this has happened. I'm considering switching over to Peet's Coffee (another place to get a caffeine fix.)
Most of the non-chain locally owned coffee houses are not open during the hours I am going to be getting the Latte drinks. I will also probably give up Latte altogether, since they can't get the Soy Latte right and If I drink too much regular milk I get heartburn. (poor me, huh?)
I had a Soy Latte last weekend and it was not obviously sweetened with nasty flavored syrup. I don't know why they would do this; I may specify - Venti Soy Latte - NO SYRUP WHAT SO EVER.
The thing is, when I go back and ask them they claim they did not sweeten it. But when you have not had much sugar in over a year, you can tell when something has real sugar. Anyone who has ever had that coating in their mouth when they have had too much sugar knows the feeling. That is the first sign that the food or drink has more sugar than my body wants. After that, my heart rate changes and I feel dizzy. My eye sockets feel twitchy and my eyelids begin to itch. Then about ten minutes later I only want to go to bed and sleep. But its not a nice relaxed turkey induced like sleep its "please let me die in my sleep so I won't feel like this any more" desire to sleep. Once that passes (time frame is dependent on the amount of sugar consumed), I feel drained and hungover. It just isn't worth it.
So, Sorry Starbucks, but you most likely just lost a loyal customer. Looking at the big picture, you won't miss me much - but keep in mind that my $ 3.40 or so a day, five days out of the week -- factoring in the drinks I pick up for friends and my cunning ability to influence other people to follow me to Peet's -- has the potential to at least make you look at the books and think... wow. The annual expected increase was not as much as anticipated. I wonder what happened?
Labels: miscellaneous topics.
pero @ 1:39 AM | œ | 0 comments
