evildeb brought a little utility to my attention. now my computer makes little typewriter noises as i type. with separate noises for space and return. it’s absolutly delightful. for now. i’m sure i’ll get over it soon. but right now, i’m having the best time. i love the little tippety tap typing noises. when i learned to type, in junior high, i learned to TYPE. not keyboard. i learned on an IBM selectric. all of my college papers were typed, i never used a word processor. i didn’t even know how. i was computer illiterate. so i’m having a little deja vu moment. although, i would like to point out, i hated my typing teacher, she only liked the popular girls. everyone else, including all boys, she did not feel she had to bother with… be nice to. i got a C in typing. totally brought down my grade point average. i did not get c’s in ANYTHING. ever. later, in college, i got a job doing medical transcription for a physical therapist. i used a little dictaphone machine with foot pedals. and an IBM selectric. that’s how i became the speedy typist i am today.
i’d point you to the utility, but it’s a Mac OS X utility. and the majority of people chose to use lesser OS’s.

today i was talking to evildeb, like i do everyday… no, we were chatting. even though our cubes are next to each other, we were chatting. i mentioned to her that i have not seen a crazy person in a very long time. and that makes me sad. i like to see crazy people every now and again, because it keeps life interesting. and i don’t feel so alone in the world. [i’m partially kidding] i also have had no reason to scold shoppers/consumers in any stores/mini marts/restaurants etc lately either. that really bums me out. i don’t appreciate rude retail people, but i dislike rude shoppers even more. i’ve worked retail. i’ve been called names because i wouldn’t let a woman through the gate and back into hallmark to buy easter grass, 20 minutes after we had closed and locked up all the money. i think i single handedly ruined easter for her. i like to think of myself as the champion of the retail worker, because i can say what they can’t. i can turn to that bitchy lady and tell her that if she would SHUT THE HELL UP, then the process will work smoothly and she will get her chance at the clerk. but lately, no one has needed my special brand of retail justice. no one has even cut in front of me in line at the shell station check out counter, allowing me to then inform them of the practice of WAITING YOUR TURN and STANDING IN LINE. evildeb told me i have not been hanging out in the CRAZY NEIGHBORHOODS. but that’s not true. i spent an entire day up on capital hill a couple of weeks ago. i was up and down broadway from one end to the other, and over to pike st. no crazies. and, in reality, the most significant personal interaction i have had with a crazy person was at a pf chang’s in pristine suburban bellevue. crazy people migrate.
you know, someday i’m going to tell some screamy customer to shut the hell up because i can’t hear myself buy shoes and they are going to punch me in the face. i wonder what my reaction would be. would i stand there, frozen in shock that someone would DARE invade my dance space and inflict harm upon my person? or would i instinctively punch back? i’d like to think i’d go all jerry springer guest on their ass. [oh TELL ME you did not just punch me, bitch. oh no you DON’T!!] i’d like to point out that i am an exceedingly polite customer/shopper, always appreciative, understanding, usually entertaining. i don’t want people thinking i run around yelling at people all the time.
by the way, evildeb has a new phrase that she is trying to implant into our corporate, or at least department, vernacular. because it’s so awful. “don’t be a cry baby… be a TRY baby.” she’s so cute.

it’s the most wonderful time of the year, you know. it’s girl scout cookie time! my enthusiasm for the girl scout cookie can be a bit unnerving to the little girl scouts outside the grocery stores. luckily for them and me, here at work, parents bring in boxes of cookies and put them in central services, with an envelope for money. they work on the honor system. if i wanted to, i could rip a bunch of girl scouts off. or maybe just the one. anyway, i could take armloads of cookies and pretend to put a check in the envelope. i could. it would be soooo easy. and yet soooo evil. i asked evildeb if she could be that evil. to steal from a girl scout. here is her reply:
evildeb: That’s not my kind of evil. I wouldn’t be able to see the little baby girlscout cry about it so what would be the point. I would want to see the result of my evilness. I could knock a girlscout down, grab all of her cookies and then dare her to “TAKE THEM BACK YOU CRY BABY GIRL SCOUT. THESE AREN’T EVEN AS GOOD AS CAMPFIRE GIRL POO!” I think that’s what I’d do anyway.
and of course, once i thought about it, i saw her point. where’s the entertainment factor in stealing girl scout cookies, if you don’t get to see the reaction. i’m not sure i could be that evil tho.
surprisingly, i’ve only purchased one box of tagalongs. i’ll get more before the week is out. and i’ll freeze them. there is another tech here who loves them and buys a bunch to freeze every year. gotta make sure i get my cookie on before she comes back from vacation! because i can be that evil.
someone european just spammed my blog, trying to sell me zoloft. because i have not yet installed the anti-spam update to my moveable type. i complained to evildeb as i deleted them one by one. but she pointed out it is a blog about a girl, her kitten and her mood disorders. so i guess i’m just asking for europeans to sell me anti-depressants. that does not, however, explain all the viagra spam i get.

we have this new system here at work. doesn’t matter what it does, what’s important is that we have to use it periodically throughout the day. and it’s pc only. which is neither here nor there, except it sucks. transitioning to this new technology has been a BIG DEAL. for several months. it has caused a great deal of both CONCERN and FRUSTRATION. i ignored the whole thing until i absolutely had to get involved. aka: the last minute. in order to help us learn the New System, we decided to have these little lunch and learn sessions over the next few days. and we’d volunteer to take an aspect of the New System, and do a demo. that would mean we’d have to GET TO KNOW IT. the New System that is. so, my little piece was today. which meant i IMMERSED myself in the New System for most of yesterday and this morning. thusly, i came to the little lunch and learn thing with a minute and a half demonstration and 37 questions and concerns about the New System. all along we’ve been told that the New System is not intuitive, and not logical, and even though we are all technicians, we will not be able to just sit down and figure out. because if you do one thing while facing west, and do the same thing in a month ending with Y, you’ll get two different results. which begs the question, why didn’t we go with a Different New System. one with logic and reason. oh, mine is not to reason why, mine is just to do what i’m told. la lalala la la laaa la la. [happy song]
i’ve been listening to gregory macguire’s “mirror mirror” in the car lately. and it’s driving me absolutely freakin’ nuts. driving me nuts from two different directions. first, the style of the book itself. the language is very… ornate. and florid. [how’s THAT for a vocab word?]. so ornate that i am often left saying “what the fuck did he just say? that sentence lasted two and a half minutes!” this morning, it took 175 words, in my estimation, just to say that the hunter and his grandmother Primavera had nothing in common to facilitate conversation. and in that explanation, i swear to god, a description of the trees in florance came up, their military arrangement. and, i really think there was something about a squirrel running up your pant leg? i can’t even tell you all the crap that was said in that explanation. and every single description is like this. i don’t remember wicked being like this. i adored wicked. but maybe that’s because i read it, and didn’t listen to it. look, i read the classics, i can handle decorative prose, if it’s good. but…. secondly, the narration. there are four narrators. one, for the general telling of the story, which is in the third person. you hear him most. one for the dwarves, one for lucrezia [who is playing the part of the wicked stepmother in this story] and one for bianca [snow white.]. those three are in the first person. we’ve heard very little from first person bianca. she’s been a child, so far, in cd’s 1-4. of those narrators, 3 of them read in an overly theatrical manner, ala Masterpiece Theatre. the main narrator is the worst. he also pronounces all the italian words with an italian accent. which is very unnerving and sounds pretentious. and when he does the voice of little bianca? this man has a smokey voice. and he is an older gentleman, you can tell. it’s just wrong. very wrong. the story should have been read by a woman. one more thing, when little bianca calls her father, the narrator reads it as “paPA!” instead of plain old papa. oh it is so annoying.
evildeb pointed out that no one is making me listen to it. i want to borrow her book version and read the rest, so i can skim the wordy descriptions. so i can find out what happens in the end. maybe it’s because i just finished listening to “coraline” which was an absolutely delightful recording, read by the author. who managed to speak as a little girl and not sound like a two pack a day smoker speaking in in pretentious falsetto.
oh jodi… bitch bitch bitch.
ps: 4 out of 5 dentists agree, i get to punch lloyd the next time he get’s all cheery first thing on a monday morning. any morning, actually. no cheery until 11:30.