The mother of all curses

Someone must be cursing something nasty about me. For the past hour, I've been getting involuntary left eye twitching and hiccups. Well, it's either that or my strange sleeping patterns. Also, the past two days I've been getting itchy bumps on my legs, at first they did not look like mosquito bites so it made me think my dog contracted fleas and infested our bed. Luckily I found a mosquito buzzing around in our room this morning so thank god it's not a curse of boils or something.

Wishing luck is on my side today...

Well, in about half an hour I'll be skipping out from work and going to a job interview. If the job would actually pay an acceptable rate, I am pretty excited. Even though it would mean going downtown everyday, it's something related to what I did before and I get to be techie / customer service. I just think it has more potential for me and it seems to be a good compromise. We shall see what comes of my meeting.

Webcomics are great

It's so easy now to have everyone and anyone see your work online. There are so many blogs, comics, so much opinion just floating around out there. Mine is quite insignificant compared to everything else but I love the idea that my thoughts here (if there was anything influential) could spark debate in others. I know there are countries who prosecute citizens for speaking their mind about their governing officials or public policies, but the internet has given us the gift of free-speech. Because of the fact that there is so much superfluous information available, everything becomes lost in the noise.

Imagine you standing on your soapbox, raving like a lunatic about something that may or may not be important, anyone walking by would think you a madman or report you to the authorities. Your presence would be detected right away. The internet allows us to hide, forces us to write semi-cohesive articles and subversively broadcast our views to the world, to anybody who looked. The trick is you have to be looking in order to find it. True, there're a lot of "questionable" material being published too and it's hard to seperate fact from fiction in a lot of cases but it's really up to the individual to validate the source, somehow, some way. If you cared enough, go to it, right? You can't blindly accept something you read, or even see with your own eyes as truth.

Anyways, enough of my ranting, this comic was the original purpose of this posting.

Politics - Science - Pop Culture

Here's a tidbit of political humor utilizing scientific theories as a commentary. I found it from a link in the Scientific American blog. Amusing.

This Modern World - by Tom Tomorrow
A brief explanation of the Cheneyverse.

After seeing that comic, I decided to pass some time researching into the controversy that is Dick Cheney's career. Amongst other articles and blogs, apparently The Washington Post just did a series of articles on that subject in the past week. I am still reading it right now but thought I'd share. It's an interesting read.

Foiled! by Websense

The constant pain in my side at work, aside from my back pain inducing slouching and unending boredom, is Websense. It blocks me from all the truly entertaining websites. Sure I'm supposed to be working but there's no work to be done. What else can I do other than surf? That and email filtering. If anyone in the company cared to check the logs for email and Websense, they would think I was a perverted racist extremist. I just tried to look at Sinfest (the comic) and it is classified as Adult Content. What the?!

Numb is my brain & body

What a brutal day at work! I am falling asleep here. Even with music in my ears, I thought it would save me but it does nothing. I stopped looking up creative/hobby stuff and tried to read more science articles. Some are interesting but something's still making me drowsy. Maybe it's my pork chop lunch causing this itus. Yeah, it's probably the pork.

I shouldn't have agreed to help out at the TV station. Now after hours of doing nothing, I have to show up, wait and do nothing for another 2 hours there before the news broadcast actually starts. Today is driving me nuts. My last email received was 10:58 this morning! There were only a total of 7 emails before that. Where the hell IS everybody? I thought maybe my mailbox was full and I wasn't getting emails, but I just sent one to myself, no problems or error messages popping up. That's the true mark of a bored person there, sending messages to yourself.

Anyways, maybe trying to write lyrics to a song not yet written will help pass some time. The first verse of this I thought of driving home last week.

This is a dedication to...
Those who sweet talk, those who kiss ass,
The ones that smoke c*ck will get the best grass,
The best of choices, the best opportunities,
The best of you and the best of me.

We give without wanting, they'll dazzle before us.
The way of the world, that's how it is.
Can it be changed, can it be different?
Do you really care? I'm kinda distant.

If I get what I need when I need it.
Why expend energy for naught?
Looking out for number one is the only mandate.
I can do it too and won't be caught.

Like steps on a mayan pyramid,
We'll stomp on you to reach the top.
Suppress the ego to nourish the id,
Steep is the climb but it'll never stop.

If you fall behind, bottom of the barrel,
the rat race continues to the high holy shrine.
We'll do it together, a team, no quarrels.
I'll scratch your back then you can scratch mine.

This is dedicated to...
Those who sweet talk, those who kiss ass,
the ones that smoke c*ck will get the best grass,
The best of choices, best opportunities,
awaiting you, awaiting me.

He works hard for his money!

Not much to report on. Work is boring but busy enough obviously because I haven't been able to surf and find interesting things to talk about. Or perhaps it's been a slow week in terms of procrastination and idling thoughts.

There was a water salesman who came in this morning. He had so much gusto and umpgh! He was pitching in the boss's office and from out here I can hear and "feel" that the water system he represents is the bestest damned water system in the world. I still felt sorry for him though. People in general now are just immune to hardcore sales pitches. We can easily turn a blind eye/deaf ear nowadays. It definitely takes a certain amount of talent and charm to be a good salesman. There are too many of them, pushed out into the world with nothing but a pamphlet and a promise of commissions, to do a job they are bound to fail at. It's a sad depressing world but kudos to him for trying so hard.

New Digs

So here's the old "temporary" office... It was all open, rows of people like a computer lab.
As compared to the new office I was move to today, still under rennovations. It doesn't look like much but considering that it's a dinky little old building in an industrial area, they spent a lot of time & money on making this place nice.

All the offices are fairly large with windows from ceiling to about 2 feet off the ground. Hardwood floor for all the manager's offices and the rest is tile. It may just be that linoleum stuff but they really made a point of making this a comfortable space.


Here's my temporary desk, right by the window. Someone else is supposed to have this seat, when she comes I will have to move. Hopefully NOT into the offices in the back or in the boardroom because I like the sunlight. Another good thing is, even if I feel like being a workaholic, I can't. The guy who locks up leaves at 5pm everyday. I can't hold up the poor guy who's been their since 7:30 now can I?

God damn!

As soon as I finished my last blog @ 4:30pm, someone sitting behind me announces that the system's back up and the chump from A/P starts emailing me with stuff to do. OOOH, how does the Man always know how to get you?! Just at the right time too! arrrgh...

Quitting Time

The decision is made. I am not moving to Head Office. My non-boss does not want to let me go to A/P yet, but instead of having me work out of HO, he's moving me to his boss's new office at the newly acquired plant on Weston Rd. It's about half the distance from home to Brampton and only a little further than this temp office here. Although it is probably unneccesary to take the 407, he mentioned on his own, that they would continue paying for the transponder fees (which I haven't used since I've gone to Brampton anwyays). So now I have that option if I choose. I wouldn've liked to work at HO, get used to the environment, see if I like it but I always dread the more inconvenient drive mid-town. Distance-wise HO is no tmuch further but it would take twice the amount of time to commute there during rush hours. I hope the new plant at Weston is nice and new.

As for today, I have no more work to do, anything I need to do is in the system which is down for maintenance for at least 2 hours. I think I'll just be quitting today and come nice and early to move my stuff in the morning. Now I can do some early grocery shopping, yahoo!

Tossed around like an old shoe

Funny. I knew this temporary office is closing down soon but it never quite hits you how soon, especially since I was supposed to have stopped working here months ago because this very office is closing down. I've gone from refusing to work in Brampton, to going to Brampton, then refusing again to work in Brampton, finally coming back to the temp office until it shuts down, extending the term of my assignment about 4 or 5 times now. (Who knows how many times it has been?)

Finally it hits me, when the IT dude comes up to me and says, "Are you moving to head office at the end of today? Let me mark down which computer you have." I was in complete shock. If they take my computer, where would I work? I'm sure as hell not going back to Brampton after the big stink I caused, what with the salary increase and all (although that extra $225 gas allowance is pretty sweet) . I've even made arrangements to transfer to A/P to learn about that. There's been no set date for my transferral because everyone is busy and they want it done neatly through HR. My current non-boss whom I don't really report to, doesn't want to let me go because I am doing a huge chunk of his work. My real boss who I should be reporting to doesn't know what I am doing but wants to help my non-boss because it makes his own team's work run more smoothly. My soon-to-be boss would really like me down at head office but she is waiting on HR to do the negotiations with the boss of my non-boss.

So with all this bureaucracy, and the temp office shutting down by Friday, I've asked IT to keep my computer here for a few extra days to stall the process but then what? Where will I be going? What shall be my fate next week?

Without intention to brag, but if they talk as if I'm such a hot commodity, they sure drag their behinds in sorting out where I should be. Finally, reality sets in for everyone. No more waltzing into work at 9:30 or so every morning, leaving earlier than I should anymore. No more looking like a schlub at work. No more net-surfing all day long when I am bored out of my mind with no work to do because neither my boss or non-boss knows my real workload. I guess the good times are really over.

Hens - controllers of own sexual destiny

Sex in the Morning Or in the Evening?
Hens solicit sex in the morning to avoid sexual harassment in male-dominated groups of chickens, shown in a new study. In the animal kingdom, males more often than females can increase their reproductive success by being promiscuous. This in turn can result in males imposing high numbers of copulation attempts and sexual harassment on females.

I thought our species have gone beyond the need (if there ever was such a thing) to mimmick animal behavior but this, girls, this is useful information!

Them wacky scientists!

To alleviate boredom at work, I've subscribed to several RSS feeds on Google Reader from some of the more popular science magazines/journals such as Scientific American & Science Daily. Having always been curious about all facets of science at a young age but not quite having the discipline or patience to learn about it fully, I never chose a science-related career path. Instead, I chose the arts. However, it is always interesting to know what new frontiers our scientist brothers and sisters have forged but sometimes after reading these headlines, it just makes me shake my head. Check out some of these nuggets from the past few days:

Personality More Important Than Job Satisfaction In Determining Job Performance Success
I understand the merit of this particular project but who said let's spend X amount of time and money to gather proof on something that I think should be widely assumed already. It's so common sense that any good manager should see it right away without needing the results of such a study to direct his/her interactions with subordinates. I say, if as a manager you don't know this, then you do not have the personality to be a fully successful and effective manager. Which, is fine, because many mediocre people get to the top. It's a fact of life. It's how long before their fall or how much they struggle to prevent that which makes life so interesting.

Finger Length Helps Predict Elementary Exam Results, Study Shows
Excuse me? Are we living in the 21st century? Okay. The article does go on to mention that there is a correlation between finger length and brain development in areas that coorespond to spatial and mathematical skills possibly because of testosterone and oestrogen levels in the womb which can affect both. So after leading to that intermediate conclusion, why dwell on the finger length and coming up with a digit ratio? If a relationship can be found on a chemical level, then how about just determining a prenatal hormon exposure ratio? They say digit ratio cannot replace SAT scores but it will be an interesting insight in relation to other behaviors such as technophobia, choices in career path or developmental disorders. I just don't understand how the relation of the digit ratio actually matters? Hopefully this was just a journalistic choice to make for a quirky read. Maybe the actual study is more about the hormones. One can only hope.

Clues to Mysteries of Physical Attractiveness Revealed
Here's the short feed, I'm not even gonna bother commenting:
"Score one for body language: It seems that body shape and the way people walk hold major cues to their attractiveness to others, according to new research. The attractiveness ratings for perceived women increased by about 50 percent when they walked with hip sway, and attractiveness ratings for perceived men more than doubled when they walked with a swagger in their shoulders."

Envy & Admiration

The "resident IT guy", as another face in the office once called him, just gets up, closes his backpack every single day at 5:00pm on the dot, or today even earlier. Less than a minute, he is up and out of here. That's the getaway approach I need to learn. Fast as lightning, like a bank robbery. The guy comes in even later than me on most days. I don't know why I care so much about the extra bit of money. Well I know why because I will end up doing it everyday and it adds up. *sigh* Maybe today is the day.

Boredom begets hunger

Talk about true lack of motivation. A few hours ago, I had blogged on my other site about my lack of motivation to exercise the past week. Here I am now, 30 minutes to an hour from the end of work and I am thinking about dinner, looking up recipes to make awesome beef noodle soup tonight. Just the thought of it is making my brain trick me into smelling the sweet broth. I can feel myself salivating.

Boredom tends to do that to you. Makes you hungry, I mean, not just salivate. Although that would be funny. An office full of bored people, wide-eyed, staring at their computers with drool down the side of their mouths. Gross; but hilarious.

Lunchroom Conversations

01:27
Five minutes ago, I walked into the lunchroom to rinse my mug: reservoir for my fill of soy milk from this morning. You know how it thickens and sticks to the sides, looks like day old splooge. Nasty stuff, that soy milk when dried. Two female co-workers whose names I will not mention (only because I do not know them) are chatting during a break. A typically casual conversation amongst colleagues about the television and movie preferences of their respective kids & significant other.

OL A, "...he really likes the action stuff, really fast paced, you know."
Worker B, "He would really like Die Hard then wouldn't he?"
OL A, "Oh, but that is really adult. No that's...that's too adult."
Worker B, "Well that's got everything!"
OL A, "My husband, he likes 24."
Worker B, "24? Die Hard's like that."
OL A, "No, 24 is more...intelligent, what with the government and all that."
Worker B, "What about those Mel Gibson movies?"

Hearing that conversation alone was enough to signal my blood to boil and jolt me back into full consciousness from my work induced trance.

I suppose I can't blame them. They are just as much affected as I am by the phenomenon of OCBDD (Office-Computer Brain Drain Discorder). When forced to converse in a manner not related to work, it reduces us to make bubble-headed remarks on just about any topic. For shame that we should be plagued by this affliction, when we have the technology in our hands to combat the effects of this ailment. Internet radio, ipods, YouTube; conveniently packaged for the momentary diversion of attention to relieve us of concentration fatigue. All of it is readily available on the very workstations we have but we are cut off or forbidden to access the cure.

The Man is determined to bring us down and drag our brain-dead carcasses across the never changing landscape and barren wasteland of office space. Sure, cubicles may change slightly, at times we are boxed in, others we are a field of people at floating workstations but always under the overbearing dark clouds of corporate policies.

Just like a driving record!

I have archived and filed away the past 2-3 years of this blog to an undisclosed internet location. Just like an insurance driving record, I've wiped the slate clean.

Upon consideration of simply deleting it all, I decided that it was an important part of my life that helped shape who I am today. Should I ever need to review and revisit my choices and feelings from those times, they are available to me lest I forget.

It's easy to forget the past, especially a hurtful past. I know some people would not agree. Actually, a more accurate way of seeing this is that it is not easy to forget a hurtful past but it is easy to forget the real events, reasons and choices that led up to it. Once that is forgotten, our minds will fabricate a new explanation for the scars it carries which may be far from the truth, thus leading us to do more wrong to ourselves.

If I never have look at those files again, maybe it will be a time capsule of my early 20's. Perhaps my children can see it. Although I will need some kind of encryption for it with the secret code to unlock it given to them only on my death bed. Or perhaps it will be like a diary dug up in someone's backyard. Some internet archiver of the future will find it, perhaps read it and experience the story and emotions of my life then. Either way, it was a special time, no matter what happened, a time I will cherish forever.

Counting down the minutes to an 8 hour day

Experience the passing of time in an office environment on an unproductive day is like going through various stages of a terminal illness. The journey ahead seems so long and endless but as a human being, we give ourselves hope. We say to ourselves, "It's not so bad, we can occupy ourselves and hope for the best." Somehow we think a miracle will happen and either we are sent home, there is work to do again or we just die on the spot.

As the day goes on, your headache increases and you're constantly looking over your shoulder waiting for the worst to happen. By hour 6, the flesh pocket surrounding my eyes called eyesockets felt like they were swollen or that my eyeballs had sunken deep into its recess all the while shriveling like a prune. They were ready to fall out if a fellow co-worker only nudged me from behind.

Now, finally I am in the home stretch. I should stay until 6 PM but that is much more than I can take for today. The people here must think I am the biggest slacker. In about 15-20 minutes, I will begin to slowly pack things up. Still feeling the pain yet almost giddy with excitement. The heavy feeling in my head will lift the instant I walk out of this building. I simply can't wait.

boy! it's gonna be a long day...

Not even an hour into work and I am already out of work to do. This is crazy. I knew that usually on Wednesday, the work slows down as everyone else is trying to catch up on other work while I sit on my thumb, waiting...waiting...waiting for them to get to the PR's I send out. I thought at least today (Thursday) there would be more emails to deal with in the morning. I had three emails this morning. 2 gave me a little bit of work to do, but now someone else needs to do something before I can proceed with them. The other one basically lessened my work.

*sigh* Not a thing to do. I suppose I can find something and pretend to work, but it would not lead to any productive end. My mind is becoming stale, for at least 8 hours of the day it should be learning or problem solving. Next week would be a perfect time to swtich departments, I wonder if that is going to happen. Should I initiate a talk with the powers that be, just to shake things up and make the day more interesting?

If only I had my knitting with me I could finish that shrug today and bring it to my mom's tomorrow as a gift.

Back to basics

I am glad I haven’t posted too much doom and gloom on this blog for a while. It should really get back to the original intention I had with it, which was a display of my zany thoughts and quirky observations about the world. (Wow I haven’t used the word zany in a while, and probably never will in real conversation.)

So I recently decided to try taking those once a day type of multivitamins, to see if it will help keep my energy levels up by filling in the nutritional gaps in my diet. I just bought a bottle yesterday and when I opened it up, there was a big wad of cotton in it. I stuffed it back in after taking a pill but then wondered. Is there a good reason for cotton to be in there? So of course I turned to my long time friend the internet who was very helpful, not that I would ever expect less.

“Cotton traditionally has been used as packing in pill bottles to keep the pills from breaking and to maintain a concept from a gentler time called pharmaceutical elegance, meaning a pleasing presentation, said Peggyann Zaenger, a doctor of pharmacy in Jacksonville, Fla., and a student of pharmaceutical history. You still find cotton in over-the-counter bottles packed by the manufacturer, but not in prescriptions filled by pharmacists. Breakage isn't common because pharmacists usually dispense medicine in smaller quantities and in thicker containers better sized to the number of pills. Also, porous cotton can absorb pathogens from hands and contaminate the pills if it's returned to the bottle. So, when you take out the cotton, throw it away, Zaenger said. “ – Rocky Mountain News
A satisfying answer. Thank you.

(ps. I might end up archiving all the “bad” stuff in this blog, since that is all past and should only be a memory, and maybe put up some of my knitting here. Yes new hobby! Woohoo! And maybe the progress of my plants in the garden.)