Sometimes, after I read Neil Gaiman’s journal, I find myself in love with him for a good 30-45 minutes. I’ve always got a bit of a crush on him, that’s a constant. But there are times, certain posts, when I just want to run around and make everyone read it, so that they can look me in the eye and try to convince me they do not love him too. Now, I am sure there are several people who would not be overwhelmed with tender feelings after reading the journal. I am not sure I want to know them, but I imagine I do. But the people that get it… they are one of the Good Ones. It’s not a deal breaker to friendship, by any means. But it’s a fairly good litmus test of humor. Because it all boils down to humor. And today was the best kind… vocabulary humor.
The software company I work for creates a test for users of the software, to test their expertise. If they pass the test, they get to officially call themselves a Smarty Pants of said software, and can even put a little Smarty Pants of product logo on their resume or business card, should they so desire. When this test is created, I am one of the people who works on it. In the past, I have written questions. Lately, I usually tech review the questions, and then help weigh the scores. Assign a point value to the answers, some correct answers are worth more than others, you know. I think that’s what I do, at least. So I’ve never taken the Smarty Pants test, for my own product. Why would I? Oh, because they like it when you do, and they give you free product. And if you’ve got nothing better you can come up with, it makes a great Quarterly Goal. So… I’m taking the Smarty Pants test tomorrow morning, at a testing center. It’s multiple choice. And from working on the test myself, I know it’s very tricky and sneaky. It’s been a year since I’ve worked on it, so I don’t remember any questions or anything. I just remember the types of questions, and some of the stuff covered. Tricky and sneaky stuff. I’ve been studying for days, because it would be very embarrassing to fail the test. But quite possible, since I don’t actually use the software every day. I don’t always remember which setting is located under what menu. However, I am following all my old studying patterns. Which is to say, I am doing anything BUT studying. Doesn’t bode well… I don’t want to turn out to be a Dumb Ass. But I have an overwhelming urge to make long distance phones calls to all my out of state friends.

“Boy, I hope they ship with a high SPF factor, if they are blowing that kind of sunshine.”

I’m aces at cracking myself up. That’s mostly why I blog, so I can go back and read my own posts and crack up at myself. Dr. Stevil and I were just walking back to work, with bags of teriyaki from Yak’s, and I noticed that our company is sponsoring the annual neighborhood Oktoberfest. They usually do, actually. But this time, we have street banners. That brought up the discussion of public awareness of our work for the public good. Charities and environmental issues, neighborhood sponsorship, that kind of stuff. We are not the main headquarters of our office, that is located down in San Jose. And down there, the community is very aware the work The Company does. Dr. Stevil was commenting that we need to be more visible with our work, here in Seattle.
Dr. S: People don’t even know we are here!
Me: We’re here, some of us are queer, get used to it?
Dr. S: Yes.
And then I came up with the most brilliant slogan for Oktoberfest … we should have t-shirts made with The Logo on it, and the t-shirt should say: We’re here, We like beer, Get used to it.
And then I laughed and laughed. Come on… you KNOW that’s a good sponsor slogan. Admit it.

Over on River Selkie’s blog, she talked dreaming that she ran for president., and what that would entail. What changes it would bring to her life. Besides just having to learn all about politics. Which is tedious at best. And I thought, “hmmmm…. I wonder what they could dig up about me, that would smear my presidential campaign and slander my good name, bringing shame to all my friends and family.”
And so now I present to you –
Things About My Life That Would Keep Me From Being Elected President of The United States of America.

1. I inhaled.
2. I have not always filed my tax returns on time, nor have I paid them on time. [fuck the IRS]
3. The bankruptcy. [if I can’t budget myself, how am I supposed to budget the country?]
4. The infamous, and completely untrue, Yum-Yum Donut Accident Story that allowed me to withdraw from swim class, as a hardship, at SDSU. [Lying is wrong.]
5. Any interview with any boss I’ve ever had, prior to this job. [well, about 90% of them, anyway.]
6. A record that shows what books I have checked out from the Library. [you naughty girl!]
7. Certain websites have, at times, received my credit card number in order to admit me “membership” to their websites with questionable morals. [but that was for a very good reason – a practical joke.Actually, it was more of a game.]
   

The trouble is, I never really did anything wrong, as a kid. I didn’t get into a lot of trouble. I used to say the worst thing I did in high school was miss the bus, making my mom would drop me off at school, on her way to work. She hated that. And I am serious. That’s about it. Oh sure, there’s some underage drinking in there somewhere, but that was mostly in college. And mostly in Tijajuana, where it was “legal” for me to drink. Frankly, I’m disgusted with myself. There are things that are embarrassing, but not a whole lot of scandal. I’m going to have to work on that.
Oh, I just came up with a Presidential decree. I was talking to my coworkers about some new drag and drop virus on WinXP SP2… I don’t what it is, I use a mac, and someone said, “who makes all of these things? who sits down and does this?” And I told them. Teenagers. Teenagers do it. And if I were president, I would give all the teenagers free access to internet porn. Because that would keep them busy, and they wouldn’t have time to make viruses. Coworkers agreed this was brilliant, and promised to vote for me.

I’m covering so many meetings, I had to cut my nails short. It makes sense, if you think of it. With my brain. When I go to meetings, I unhook Squishy, the 12″ TiBook, from her auxiliary ergonomic keyboard and monitor, and take her with me. Squishy’s keys are so carefully arranged to fit in her 12 inches, that if I have long nails, they often hit the keys next to the one I am typing. Since I am doing a lot of typing on Squsihy directly, due to all these meetings, I had to cut my nails. Get it?
I woke up at 3:30 this morning, decided it was a fine time to take a bubble bath, which I did, and then went back to sleep. It seems almost a dream.

Kam was here this weekend, visiting. It was a quick visit…only about 36 hours. But we packed in a bunch of stuff. I took Kam to the Apple Store, and she bought an iPod. She’d been thinking about it for a while, wanting one for a while, and she decided that this was the day she was going to do it. We walked in the store, and walked over to the iPod table, and her iPod purchasing experience was remarkably similar to mine.
Sales Person: Hi, can I help you find something?
Kam: I want to buy an iPod!!
Me: She wants to buy an iPod!!
Sales: Sure, just to let you know, the colored mini iPods are out of stock right now.
Kam: I don’t want a mini.
Me: She wants this one! the 40gb!
Kam: yeah… i want that one!!
Sales: Ok!
And she takes us over to the counter and rings us up. That’s it. All that excitement and anticipation, and it’s over in seconds. Do they not understand? You are there to finally buy your iPod!! It’s terribly exciting! But they are just friendly and helpful. They don’t feel the buzz. I don’t know, when I finally bought mine, I just would think… shouldn’t there have been a band. Or a parade. Or at least a bunch of Apple Store employees shaking my hand and welcoming me to the iPod club. Teaching me the secret iPod handshake? It’s ok, I was there to be excited with Kam. Plus, we had the added bonus of parking so that we entered and exited through the shoe department at Nordstroms. That’s just good planning.
We visited several of Kam’s favorite places to visit, when in Seattle. While at the East/West bookstore, I found a new tarot deck, I simply had to add to my collection. The Victoria Regina Tarot. Done with regency era woodcuts, I could not take my eyes off it. Especially the suit of wands. Instead of wands, they use fountain pens. I love all the suits, really. The Cups are Bell or Mason Jars, the Coins are pocket watches. And the swords are guns. I think my favorite Major Arcana card is the moon. The accompanying book seems very complete and the deck even came with it’s own velvet bag. Awwwww…..
Anyway, the best part of all was I finally got Kam to watch Buffy. We watched the first four episodes… the first disc of Season one. She says she will add Buffy to her netflix queue!! My work here is done.

Dr. Stevil sent me this article from the Guardian UK.
“Insensitive computer programmers with little knowledge of geography have cost the giant Microsoft company hundreds of millions of dollars in lost business and led hapless company employees to be arrested by offended governments.”
Who knew that Win95 was banned in India? That’s awesome! I mean seriously… geography is boring. Who cares?

I’m working on this Big Report at work right now. I’ve never had to do this Big Report. But the woman who does it is on maternity leave for the next seven years. Give or take. So Dr. Stevil, EvilDeb and I are filling them out. And to think that all three Big Reports are normally done by one person… because, frankly, they are driving the three of us insane. This is our first time, with the Big Reports. Steve’s not here today, I think his brain imploded yesterday. EvilDeb just ran out of here, scratching her own eyes out. She was mumbling something about not being able to do that anymore and needing food. So running to the store for nosh, because she just cannot take it anymore.
Where as I… I just simply changed the colors on my blog again. I was sick of purple and green, but not ready for a fall color scheme. I feel better now.

Start saving boxes for me, because I might be moving. The deal is this, I’ve offered to live in my old house, now owned solely by my step daddy, while he rents an apartment in the coastal town up north, which is the location of his new job. He was going to commute this year, while he finished up some work on the house, and then sell it and move up there next year. The commute is about 60-70 each way, I think it’s about a 150 miles per day. But he leases his car, and the amount of extra money he’d have to pay for mileage is ridiculous. So he mentioned to me that he was going to have to drive his older truck. But I had a better idea.
I told him that if he wanted to find an apartment or something up there, I would move into the house, but pay his rent on the apartment for the next year. He’d save money on gas and mileage, not to mention all that time he’d save. I’d get to move out of my stupid apartment, and into a house that I love. And he’d still have easy access to it for whatever it is he wants to do to it before he sells it. And storage rights. See? perfect. I didn’t think he’d take me up on it, he said he was going to think about it. But last week, he called me to ask me if i really wanted to do it, and I said, “hell yeah!” He’s going to be looking for places up north this week. I know I couldn’t count on it until it’s a done deal, but I am really excited and already planning how I am going to arrange the furniture. I love that house.
He wouldn’t have to even ask if I were serious, if he came home to my apartment every evening for a week. The other night I came home to a hallway smelling of green peppers [ I hate green peppers] and two safeway shopping carts. [Magically, these safeway shopping carts have mated, because when I left this morning, there were four of them. ] There was a new trike in the hallway, because that’s where the kid next door does the majority of his game playing. In the hallway. In my apartment, the air was hot and still, and faintly green peppery smelling.
The tricycle brings to mind a conversation with Mr. Moon. I was talking to him on the phone. And I mentioned that the kid next door was out on his big wheel, riding up and down the hallway while screaming. His reply?
“If he starts saying ‘redrum,’ get the hell out of there!!”
All work and no play make Jodi a dull… well, let’s face it… The chances of Jodi ever pulling off All Work are pretty remote.