Hot

Best. Name. Ever.

I Heart Atkins

I have two coworkers. Two. They are both roughly 35, with families and kids and pets and one of them, FRANZ, has two peacocks which I've never seen but nonetheless beleive exist. We work together and it's nice, mostly because we keep a small unused desk constantly full of donuts and different kinds of coffee and cookies and brownies and peanuts and all good things. And, as I said, there are only three of us, so it's not like those bear claws are gone in a day. They could last a WEEK. That arabian coffee could be here ALL MONTH. And our greatest teamworking effort is keeping the desk stocked. We don't even discuss it. The second we're out of M&Ms, TED happens to bring more in. The second the milk gets low, FRANZ comes through with a two-liter. We all do our part. It's unspoken. It's amazing.

Anyway, a while back FRANZ and his family made a New Years resolution - "We will only eat sweets on the weekends" - not only to help stay in shape but also to establish a working system of discipline and community within their growing family. I thought it sounded like they were asking for a collective binge and purge attitude, but apparently it's been working fine. Problem was, as soon as this resolution was made, FRANZ was out of the candy desk picture. He no longer contributed and he no longer consumed. It was just TED and me.

We did good. The smaller, handful-type candies (Skittles, peanuts, brittle) were scarce - they had been FRANZ'S territory - but the Krispi Kreme selection did not waver for a moment. And to make FRANZ jealous, TED started bringing in pies, which were delicious. So the candy kept coming, while FRANZ sat eating his peach and salad, everyday. That's how it went for a year.

Now let's rewind about a month. It is this past New Years Eve, and TED turns to his wife at the stroke of midnight - "I think we should do that candy diet thing that FRANZ and his family do. He looks great! He's as happy as ever!" - and TED's wife says - "Okay!" - and they hug. So TED walks into work on whatever day we went back to work on after the break and tells me that he, too, will no longer be taking part in the candy desk and I am truthfully - truthfully - betrayed.

This entire month I have been filling an entire desk with candy that only I eat. Slowly and surely, the desk is falling apart. There are no more Ring-Dings. There is never any more milk.

That is what I hate.

Domin-Hate

I just hate it when this happens.

Ray hates, too!

For my first foray into these hate chronicles, I'd like to go ahead with a full-fledged dick move: I'm going to hate on Beth.

Not her specifically, mind you. But her attitude towards girls, specifically girls of romantic interest to me.

As you may know, I think Beth is downright apples 'n' pears. In fact, I count her among the best friends I have.

But when it comes to the ladies in my life, Beth hates. She hates almost every girl I date (present S.O. excluded, unexpectedly, {although Beth is hostile towards the present S.O.'s dog}). And I hate on her hating. I "hate-hate" if you will.

See, some random chick on myspace had her ostensible "friends" message me about how she was keen on me. She had even myspace-blogged about me. But she was nervous about contacting me first, so I was to contact her and befriend her and eventually wed her and make babies with her. (Well, she wasn't that specific, but one might imagine...)

Now, I presumed (and continue to presume) that this entire situation was an elaborate hoax, designed by one of my friends with too much spare time. (Come to think of it, Jordan's working only like 4 hours a day, right? Hm...)

However, I also acknowledge the remote possibility that she really exists and is just, well, maybe a little bit bonkers. Hey, it could happen, right?

Nope. Not according to Beth, who must ruin my fantasy and call me a dolt (not a direct quote) and mock that I could even believe this rubbish, blah, blah, blah.

Why Beth? Why?

Don't hate.

Love.

***

UPDATE: Jon "Blaze" confirms that he, too, received this request but wasn't dumb enough to click it. He said, "I think a lot of people got that."

So yeah: I'm an idiot. Beth was right. As always.

Notes

When I browsed through the news stories listed on Yahoo earlier today the "Best Jobs for 2006" headline stuck out. Us News and World Report think you should be a
1. audiologist
2. optometrist
3. veterinarian
4. professor
All pretty standard I guess. I mean the professor thing, that's a given. That job is gravy baby, especially, I suspect at some of those smaller, more expensive liberal arts schools. The audiologist seems a bit odd, but I guess they figure all the baby boomers are going deaf right about now, and all those kids have their earbuds shoved in at all times and their ipods up so loud that there's great job security. But further down the list we have
5. librarian
Apparently this is an 'underrated' career. Hmmm. I knew one person with a masters in library science. She was definitely temping last I heard.
6. Clergy
2k5 was not so sweet to the clergy folk, maybe 2k6 will be better?
Further on down the list we have 'personal coach' and 'firefighter.'
Whatever

********

On an unrelated note.
I really hate people that have these dumb quotes as part of their signature at the end of their emails. Do you really think your musing from Mark Twain or Machiavelli or whoever is going to inspire me while I sit at a desk and read your work-related email? No, it isn't, it's just gonna make me think you're lame. And exponentially lamer if you are someone who corresponds with me regularly and thus I know that you actually go to the trouble to change your quote with some frequency from something like "don't cry because its over, smile because it happened" to "this above all to thine own self be true."

I was ranting to my co-worker about this phenomenon yesterday. He didn't seem to be quite as perturbed by it as I. He happens to be a former member of a famous band whose name rhymes with the cave crapviews land. I found it quite amusing, then, when he commented, "Beth, you don't even know how much lamer it is when that email quote is some trite song lyric from your old band."

Love,
me
'Celebrate we will, for life is short but sweet for certain.'

Woe is Internet-less Me

Today the woes are technological. My computer, you see, is sick. Well not so much sick as fucked up. The end of the power cord or the part it plugs in to in the computer or something is apparently bent so unless all the stars are aligned, its 67 and cloudy, and god is smiling on me, or I wiggle the plug just right, the computer doesn't think its plugged in to a power source and it likes to loose power fast. If we were continue with the anthropomorphizing of said computer it would be along the lines of a person who...well you know, something.

So I took it to the Geek Squad at Best Buy (which, hi, tangent, I feel so sorry for because their job sucks. There were about 5 people in line in front of me and every one of them was a huge asshole to the service counter dude. I know it sucks that your computer sucks. Its fucking annoying. Its probably MORE annoying for the service dude who has to listen to eleventy hundred incompetent boobs like you who come in daily to yell at him about how their computer won't work when they are obviously oblivious to even the most basic of computer-related things and 99.9% of the time the problem is their dumb fault and their non-stop asshole-ishness makes the service dude want to die every night when he gets home. People that are jerks to service folk are the worst. Honestly. Haven't you ever had that job? Any job where you were someones bitch? Right. Most people have, so stop acting like a dickhead and remember what that was like...now back to regularly scheduled programming) and they tell me they have to send it back to Gateway and it'll take 2-5 weeks to fix this "common problem." AHH! what the f. how will I SURVIVE. I shall surely DIE and my final words will be "it was.....lackofinternet!" and my tombstone will read "she lost the web, and now we have lost her." So anyway that was crap. Also, I suspect even less posting (if that's even possible) once I finally come to terms with and actually give up my computer. gah!

2KSuck

I know 2005 kinda blew around the world but 2K6 is really off to a spectacularly poor start. It's the first year I can remember actually being home alone at the strike of midnight NYE. January 1 saw a meltdown of epic proportions for me, post WAYY too much booze, and an unfortunate bringing up of various sleeping dogs. goo! Crappy weather and this news (while I didn't know the Harveys, Kathryn was the toy buyer for Plan 9 so it hit a bit close to home...or work, I guess) have rounded out a LAME first 3 days of 2006.

I'd been doing much better than I expected with my newest attempts at independence but honestly, the holidays are not the time to try. There's nothing going on around town and staying warm and cozy with loved ones is the most appealing thing I can think of, although not the best thing to do when trying to branch out on your own. But I am looking forward to the Bottom of the Hudson/Nice Jenkins show Friday, and our sure-to-be-spectacular-in-some-way-or-other work holiday party on Saturday. A Thursday trip to DC and get together with long-lost buds gives me hope the first week of the year can redeem itself.

Oh! and more blogging also. I didn't have any resolutions so this might as well be it. Certainly easier than that whole lose weight nonsense. But that also means more rambling nonsense posts like this.

Also...I just previewed this and it says I wrote it at 3:20pm. It's 6:39. Not sure why this irks me so, but it does.