Howard Hughes was never ill, it's just his brain was a little sore...

i still have not heard about my little...potentially fruitless attempt
last week; as soon as i know, i will share, albeit limitedly.

though if i have an epic fail, well...i will bitch here unreservedly. bank it.

in Other News, at Eviljob i have switched managers again, only this
time i am working under someone i worked *with* a few years ago, when
i was in IT (still for Eviljob).

what? i don't seem like a geekgirl? ahhh...it's the lighting. truth be
told, i am a titanic weirdy-type geek. i got out of IT cos there was
No Future after Eviljob realised that once we (IT peeps) got a type of
certification, we left Eviljob to work for an even bigger, more evil
corporate entity. butsoanyway.

when i was in IT, ol' Howard used to crack me the hell up -- i was sat
right next to him -- because he is batshit crazy. like seriously,
completely, off-his-meds nuts. he was constantly talking about how he
was about to put a bullet in his brain, or how our facility should be
condemned because he saw a gnat in the bathroom, and so on. we all had
nicknames, and his was 'milton' -- as in from office space. and i got
parked in-between 'milton' and 'farva' (as in from super troopers).

and no, i'll not be sharing my nickname; it was rude. :-)

so i found out today that milton -- who is now floridly psychotic --
is my new manager.  So I am renaming him Howard Hughes; it was that, or Hunter S. Thompson.

lol... I accidentally published before I was done, so I had to recall the post to finish.  Anyhoo, so I scheduled a meeting for tomorrow morning about a testing crisis at Job 2.5, and then booked to Eviljob to find out that HH is our functional group's manager.  Everyone was upset, because he has the reputation for being, well...crazy.  I was deliriously happy; we have reviews coming up, and I was sweating mine under Miss Piss, our interim manager who we all thought was here to stay.  We were not happy over this especially because Piss took an idea over from another area manager and essentially stole it, but that is another story.

...and I just took an hour-plus long phone call, the short of which is SuperMom is pregnant, and I have run out of time to finish this post, 'cos I have to get my shit together for tomorrow's meeting.  But, in the middle of a shitty month, today was a good day.  And I didn't even get a chance to tell all about how HH kept me from climbing up a tree after one of the parking lot cats.  No, seriously.  Kiki got down all by himself just fine, as predicted.  It was funny.  Now I really have to get to work.  Bwaah.  

Another Victim of the Media Drive-By

G'mornin'.

After reading this last night, I pull up my 'puter and see my news for this morning, and I realise that this article about the election does not even begin to cover what my mother (and her friends) will tell you is 'the *real* story'.  I haven't had the time to list off her kooky ideas (and actually try to not talk with her about them, because she's nuts), but...they're there.  For example, without getting into names, one of them killed a gay guy, and the other one had a 5.5 year-long secret meeting with Pol Pot (or whomever) to work out World Domination.  

I guess plans like that take a long time.  

I think we can thank a combination of cable news channels, radio talk shows, and old ladies misinterpreting most everything they hear, and then further misremembering what it was they had misinterpreted.  

My mother, the conspiracy theorist.  Sigh.  

Damnation, but this place is noisy.

I am playing QB1. W00t. Harry is an idiot...I lent (heh) him some
money to place a bet (illegal or not, we're at a new bar this year,
and they're letting a couple of guys here do it), and SchmuckMan's
handwriting was so unreadable that one of the guys taking bets (also
customers) had to come back to our table twice...sigh. Whatever they
are betting is convoluted enough that I didn't follow -- one is a
straight-out bet, and the other is the weird one, but whatever... A
bunch of people at our table did it, and I know Harry's short on
money, so what the hell.

Anyway, at least this year I'm not the only girl, cos Meg came. Yay.

My prediction is Pats, though I'm not saying who I'm *for*.

kthxbai

**update**

So Harry won the minor straightforward bet, 'cos he knew I was (along with everyone else) favouring The Patriots, and so he just HAS to be different. But he lost on the other, ridiculously complex bet, and that one (naturally) both cost and was worth more. Le sigh.

:-) But I *am* happy NY won.

Ok, now on to funny stuffs...

Quit being batshit!

I believe that, for whatever reason, i attract people that are insane. Or something. To make a really long story short, this year Baby Bat is working at a quasi-local haunted house; she works it every year in fact, for the past god-knows-how-many years. Bully for her. Meg and I had some friends come into town over the weekend, and they wanted to go to the haunted house. So, just because BB and i text back and forth a lot and i thought we were somewhat friends, i sent her a text message basically saying that we would be there, cos they just opened. Ok, fine. So she sends back this weird message about how Saturday nights are usually bad (huh?) and when i replied with something to the effect of how i was sorry to hear that, and that was odd, but we had guests who wouldn't be in town any other night, she suddenly starts sending this *flood* of messages about how if we go, don't, don't, DON'T take pictures, as it is not allowed. Do not even bring a camera, she says, cos it could end up confiscated. I finally told her that I had to turn my phone off 'cos I was going into a doctor's office (I lied), and I stopped responding, but BB still sent three more text messages. Gah.

I intentionally did not acknowledge her when we went; I do not know what in the hell was going on, but other than the typical no-flash-photography-inside stuff, there was nothing different from any other year. One person in our group speculated after seeing her that she is a very vain person who did not want pictures of her taken where she could not control how she looked. I am somewhat tempted to buy that explanation; BB is a tich on the vain side at times. And no, that is not one way in which she and I are similar.

But I am so, so tired of everyone I know being neurotic. I really, really am.

Fighting the Forces of Evil...again.

.

Harry is mostly ok; the left side of his heart -- the one left un-bypassed -- is all crapped up. He is now on Plavix, and has to go back in a month, when his cardiologist will know if this can be stented at all.

On the way to work Wednesday afternoon, i was listening to NPR's story about a group named TAPS, that helps counsel children who have lost parents in Iraq to overcome their grief. The link is worth a listen if you have the time, and not just because it is a noble endeavour...oh, no; there is comic relief, too. It is run like a camp of sorts, with different exercises and projects designed to direct the children in a path they feel is more positive. The one project that i found most striking was the group project to make stress balls -- you know, those things vendors stick in your bag at conferences? Because, like I always say, having a stress ball is *just* like having a dad. Even better sometimes.

And were they unable to come up with *any* name better than 'Good Grief Camp'? All I can think of is Peanuts, sorry.

Sheesh.

At Job 2, we are having Upheaval...again. There is this guy who is fairly high-up in the food chain, only not with Job 2; he signed on with us recently, 'cos at the present time Job 2 is a farking money pit. Well, he started making moves last week and even more overtly this week towards unseating my immediate manager/senior researcher. This is just not good. The Wacky Divorcee (I named her Kate earlier, when we had the upheaval with Karol) I have mentioned a few times was placed under this guy, and I assisted with pulling her over to our group 'cos she was about to be let go. What this dork is doing is trying to stock his group with people who are in his back pocket, basically. To a large extent, he did something similar in our department a few years ago. Some people are just Completely Batshit Antisocial Megalomaniacs. Sigh. This will be fun; especially since, in gunning for Xena, Warrior Princess, this guy is indirectly gunning for me -- our whole group, in fact. I am amazed that he thinks his little group could accomplish *half* of what we have done, but apparently he must. For the time being, his group has been moved out of our building into a different facility across the street, more or less, but he wants *our* space. And our equipment. And allegedly is making grandiose claims and statements both about us, and about what *his* group is capable of doing in comparison to us to some of our funding sources. It just gets weirder and weirder. I guess I will have to explain more later, 'cos I need to actually pay attention in this class I am currently in (an unnecessary class -- my necessary one was last night -- but this one is with HoD), and I am beginning to wonder if HoD thinks I am really taking all these notes.

.

So, so true...

Surrounded by vegan Cali freaks, I crave toxic foods regularly...

Orthorexia

See? Don't be that weirdo--go have some banana bread, or something. I am.

p.s.: The kittens are wonderful! :-) I have to take them for shots tomorrow if my classes and meetings don't run too long.

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