| Customer service |
[Jul. 21st, 2011|12:40 pm] |
When I was in customer service, I thought I was good, but a lot of people I've shared stories with thought that I was somewhat mean or abusive.
The Daily WTF chimes in with an all-time classic in tech support: read the Un-Fix subheading.
Sir? I personally salute you. (The Zebra guy, from the first subheading... is probably just a petulant weenie) |
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| Just discovered Pandora |
[Jul. 20th, 2011|10:58 am] |
I know lots of people have been using it already, but I still haven't brought in any music to rip here at the new job, and I'm going to be entering a whole lot of testcases today.
I forgot how much I like that goofy Sneaker Pimps song. :)
EDIT: additional note- I've been listening to a pretty consistent feed of girl-punk bands. Perhaps I am feeling like a Styracosaurus. |
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| Bipolar on Gail Carriger |
[Jun. 24th, 2011|02:19 pm] |
I'm about 1/3 of the way through Soulless, and my impressions:
1. A pretty good mystery story, I'm actually really engaged in the plot
2. The style of the book is really bugging me right now. I'm frankly tired of reading about all the characters' outfits, and tired of reading about the narrator's approval or disapproval of same. FFS, I don't care if one of the guys is wearing an out-of-fashion hat. I'm also being driven up the wall with the constant references to the protagonist's breasts.
p9: "...there was nothing at all wrong with her figure."
p16 "her generous curves... nicely padded in all the right places..."
p58 "the doorway was narrow, while her bosoms (even corseted) were not..."
Okay, maybe it isn't as frequent as I'd thought (another reference on 110, and the next chapter can't be helped, as it starts with 4 pages of the protagonist making out), but it is still annoying.
I wish I could really put my finger on what is driving me so batty about this book- I almost said "classist," but that really isn't it. I am being driven nuts by the characters' preoccupation with how they are perceived by others, and their peevishness about social standing. I get that for a bunch of readers, it is really fun to have characters tut-tutting over what fabric a dress is made of, or whether it is appropriate for a woman to go walking in the company of a gentleman without an escort, but I keep wanting to shout at the characters to "get over yourself," and this is only amplified when the dandies in question happen to be vampires in fancy clothes.
EDIT: Yeah, what I think this book needs is Takeshi Kovacs to smash a brick into someone's face (preferably after they whisper that he looks like the "son of a coachman" or something). After finishing this book, I'll try to cleanse my palette by reading Jekyll and Hyde again, except I'll make Hyde the hero and banality the bad guy. |
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| Weekend recap |
[Jun. 20th, 2011|12:21 pm] |
Friday
Friday, I signed an offer letter for a job with Quardev, working at Google. Whew. Happy about having money coming in again.
Friday afternoon, I celebrated by hanging out with awesome friends. Started off by having a couple of hands of Kung Fu Fighting with ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif?v=92.2) tenshinokuroi (<- unofficial award for "hardest handle to spell"), then headed over to Noodle Land with oldmangrumpus and gardenprophet. After dinner, syukton joined us for a couple of games of Survive! (happy to report that the new edition is great) and a quick game of Quirkle, which one of our cohort (whose name escapes me... "Jim?") picked up after enjoying it quite a bit.
The evening concluded at gardenprophet's apartment for a screening of Undead or Alive, a zombie western starring Chris Kattan. There were funny moments, but as a whole- the less said about this, the better. :)
Leaving from there was a little beastly, as it turned out that 520 was closed, but the signage was confusing (is the *exit* closed, or is the *bridge* closed- turned out to be the latter). I got home around 2am, got to bed around 3.
Saturday
Saturday, we celebrated gNat's third birthday at the Country Village in Bothell. I'd been looking for a place where the gNat could feed some animals, and this place came up on an LJ community looking for petting zoos.
( Lots of good times and links in here! )
Things we didn't do, that I'd like to do at another time: Putt-putt golf (course is too soggy right now), feeding the chickens, feeding the ducks.
That evening, I went over to oldmangrumpus's place to watch Black Dynamite, which was a ton of fun, and actually pretty good to boot.
Sunday
Father's day! Breakfast took a while to get going, but we ended up at (surprise!) the Little Red Hen, where I enjoyed a Chicken-Fried Steak and excellent company. I played video games with miniBot while gNat had his gNap (miniBot loves the Lode Runner level editor), and then in the afternoon we did a big grocery shop at QFC.
Good times. :) |
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| Dra-Ma |
[Jun. 17th, 2011|12:17 pm] |
All's Drama!
I start a new job on Monday at a significant pay increase, but I won't have a bus pass, which makes me somewhat edgy about the whole thing.
The loss of the "golden ticket" bus pass bugs me a great deal. First and foremost, it inhibits my desire to go places, because "go places" is no longer "free if I pack lunch," but more like five bucks. Secondly is that whole gnawing expense thing. I'm really, really trying not to use my credit card, but when my bus pass gets low, that's what you do. Lastly, this is making me resent my own lack of mobility. I feel honestly freer without a car, as I don't have to look for parking places, I don't have to pay attention in traffic, and I can enjoy the company of my companions while going somewhere. The "not having to park" is a big deal on either end of a trip, too- I don't have to find parking at my destination, and I don't have to park when I get home. The irregularity of the bus schedule doesn't bother me, it just requires patience and the ability to enjoy where I am, right now- which is much easier if I know that I can get somewhere else, given patience.
MiniBot is having an especially trying day. Since getting back from Kansas, he hasn't had much of a routine to rely on, and seeing me go in and out of the house is driving him crazy- I know that he wants me at home and the honest truth of the situation is that starting Monday, he isn't going to see me much except on weekends. This is causing him to act out terribly at his babysitter, who is having a tough time of it.
Our babysitter continues her career as a world class crap-magnet, and there ain't much I can do. My impression (she's been vague) is that she's couch surfing these days, as today she was asking me if I knew of any low-cost hotels in the north seattle area, and she doesn't have a working phone right now. This led to the muchly unimpressive drama Monday, where she just *didn't show up* all day, and then flipped out Tuesday when she realized that we had no idea what was going on. Apparently she got stung by a bee (she's allergic), and then had a nasty allergic reaction to morphine at the doctor's office, so she was out of commission Monday. An ex-boyfriend was her emergency contact, and he didn't bother to call and tell us she wouldn't be there.
Cool things from yesterday / this morning should merit mention: 3 of us had doctor's appointments yesterday, yay Qliance for having flexible scheduling. I had bloodwork done (hoping to set a world record for cholesterol), gNat showed that he's a healthy 3 year old, and mrs. Bot (aka wordknitter) got to have a good getting-to-know-you with her doctor. Also cool- all 4 of us have the same doc, and she seems pretty good. In video game news, I'm thinking platformers are pretty awesome, and would just as soon spend my whole day playing the Adventures of Shuggy or trying to beat medium difficulty on Platformance: Castle Pain, which now has... Leaderboards!! Last I checked, I was number one in the world at Easy difficulty, and every other easy difficulty score was set on the same day (4/1/2011) which leads me to believe that the leaderboards aren't working.
Tonight's agenda is to try to surface socially: Meeting an old buddy for cards and conversation in the mid-afternoon, games at Uncle's afterward, and a movie & Jiffy pop with "the gang" in the evening. Here's hoping this knocks the rust off and keeps me from complete degredation of social skills. |
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| Career search update, and things to do |
[Jun. 10th, 2011|11:07 am] |
Things to do:
Find out if I can pay a visit to the Stinking Corpse Lily at the UW greenhouse Done! viewing is open today until 4:30 pm.Write up a killer resume and coverletter for a position far, far away Done? I get the feeling that I would've done a better job if I had an "office" from which to do my jobhunting work, instead of Bus Stop Espresso, but it beats "home with the kids" as a place to write coverletters.Plan something for gNat's birthday party gnext weekend (if you've been following, this is gno gnews) done! Country Village in Bothell (with your little train, your feedable chickens, and your pirate ship playground), here we come!
Career search update:
Yesterday I had a phone screen with a guy who was a total jerk. Not going there.
I also had an (eek!) interview loop, which I think went surprisingly well. Upside: Cool people, lots to lear. Downside: Working in Kirkland, and there is the potential to _really not_ like working for a google subsidiary.
Also, there is a "job that would make a fine career" opportunity that I'm putting a resume together for- but it would be in or around Washington DC, which is a long, long way from here. My biggest anchor here is the house, but my wife has a job she likes, and the boys seem pretty content with the neighborhood (actually, they probably have far less ties than either of us). I'm trying to do the right thing here, and actually give it a chance, but I would rather not-move than move. |
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| Funny dream from last night: Dr. Light gets tired of being teased |
[Jun. 8th, 2011|02:35 pm] |
I feel like I should write something about what's "really going on," but everything seems pretty muddled now, so here's my funny dream from last night.
There was going to be an outdoor play with a superhero team (I want to say the Fantastic Four, but I'm pretty sure they were DC characters) featuring Dr. Light as the bumbling villain. FWIW- I think I was Dr. Light.
During introductions to each other before the play, I was feeling quite personally insulted by the heroes, so I made things rough on them once we hit the stage. Turned out that I had a convenient way of dropping them forward in time, changing something, and bringing them back. So if the human torch was going to throw a fireball at me, I could drop him forward in time quite a bit, set things up that a fireball would break a barrel and drench him in water, and then bring him back to a split-second later.
What the audience would see is the torch chucking a fireball at a barrel and getting drenched out, followed by similar comic misadventures of people trying to beat the "bumbling" doctor light.
There was more here, but I'm forgetting it now.
As nasty of a bad guy that Dr. Light was, I'll try to hang onto the thought of Dr. Light taking control of his situation, against supposedly more powerful foes. :) |
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