There is a silverfish in my keyboard. Don’t ask me how it got there or what it likes about its new hangout. It’s just sitting between the bottom plastic and the top transparent plastic in between the main bank of keys and the section with help, delete, home, end, etc. I don’t even know if it’s alive or dead. The bugger of it is that I don’t know how to get it out without royally frelling up my keyboard, and if I leave it alone and then find it gone, it’s in prime real estate for access to lots of my yummiest important papers. And if it’s dead, that’s just gross. I do not want to be typing on a sacred silverfish dying ground. Suggestions are welcome. For now, I’m just going to try to relax the disgusted curl out of my lip and keep on with life as usual….
Author Archives: Katie
How’s that higher education working out for you?
I call a lot of doctors’ offices, and a lot of them put me on hold. One that I called today had that overly cheerful custom Muzak with embedded recorded messages. The first time I was put on hold, the message said: “Summer. That time of year you dream about on dreary winter days. After we take your call, we suggest you venture outside and take advantage of the wonderful sunny days that abound this time of year.”
Ooookay. I was still puzzling how they thought it was summer now, even in California, when the receptionist took me off hold and then put me back on, and this came twinkling into my ear: “Spring. It’s a time when we turn the clocks ahead and do that proverbial spring cleaning. It’s also a time to say how much we appreciate your patronage.”
Damn, they’ve really turned their clocks ahead.
Things they don’t tell you
Aaagh. Every time we try to get something going on wedding planning, we find more reasons to scrap the whole thing. Last month we got soured on a whole lot of aspects with one series of tours, and we just managed to get ourselves out of the house on the subject again today.
I had vowed at the beginning of this to avoid David’s, the Wal-Mart of bridal stores, like the plague. However, being this close and having nothing to show for it but a pair of shoes, toasting glasses, and a cake server has begun to freak me out, so I braved the place. I remembered walking in and being accosted by a plethora of pushy, smiley salestwigs who wanted us to try on all sorts of stuff. Not this time. Turns out the place is having a sale, and as a result was completely packed. And sometime between 2000 and 2003, they made appointments mandatory for bridal tryons. So here I am, getting wonderful upper-arm exercise pawing through the racks, trying to get the attention of someone who won’t even take the time to ask if I have an appointment, and nobody bothers to tell me that I need one. For half an hour. So they’re off my list, again.
Then we get home and there’s another piece of paper spam for a hotel offering reception sevices. Since there’s no way my hair could make a standard-time-slot morning wedding on time, we’re looking at afternoon, which means a dinner reception. Their cheapest dinner is $31.95 a plate, not including 19% gratuity and 7.75% sales tax, which makes it $40.97 a person. And depending on what the “chef’s choice” of vegetable might be, Kelson might not be able to eat it. No, thank you.
Vegas is looking pretty and shiny again.
Okay, that’s worth posting from work for.
Annoyances, my arse. I think the two comments linking to porn sites (which, with luck, will have been removed by the time most people see this post) qualify for a full-on pissy fit. Blog spammers should be roasted alive. Slowly.
Harry Potter computer viruses
Inspired by finding a list of Babylon 5 viruses earlier this week.
Harry Potter virus: Looks like the last file of a virus you just wiped out, until you try to erase it–then it wipes your drive.
Voldemort virus: You can’t get rid of it, only make it dormant. It can be reactivated by the Wormtail virus up to thirteen years later.
Dumbledore virus: Scares off all the other viruses but never seems to actually *do* anything.
Hermione virus: Fills up all available drive space with files of useless information.
Ron virus: Contains code, some of it buggy, from the author’s five previous viruses.
Flashback Blog: Sanding doors
So my computer dumped my “Recent Items” list again and I had to go digging through my WP files to find the writing bits I was looking for. And I found some stuff that would have made great blog material if I’d had one at the time I wrote it. This one is from the summer I spent painting residence houses at UCI. I’d just been introduced to the wonderful world of sanding down semi-gloss paint to make sure the new coat would stick, and I was high on Babylon 5. So I started thinking, “What would the B5 characters say or do if someone asked them to sand doors?”
Ivanova: Doors? You want me to sand doors? This is a joke, right? John, this isn’t funny.
Garibaldi: Let me get this straight. You want me to sand doors…….do you have any idea how busy I am? Tell you what, you get someone–Zack! Will you go sand some doors for me?–and you just tell them I did it. Would that make you happy?
Lennier: (bows and leaves)
Kosh: (music) No… (more music)
Corwin: Nobody ever tells me anything around here, and now they want me to sand doors. I’m not sure, but I think I may have been demoted.
Zathras: Great door. Terrible door. But great hope for smooth finish. Zathras used to sanding doors. Doors understand Zathras. Doors always in the way. Much being pushed out of way. Just like Zathras. (this one is Kelson’s)
Morden: You say you want me to sand doors, but I believe I can do more for you than that. Let me speak to my associates and I’ll be right with you.
Lyta: The other Kosh never made me sand doors!
Londo: Yes. You want me to sand doors. But in the grand old days of the Centauri Republic, thousands of servants would have sanded thousands of doors at our slightest whim!
Vir: Londo….I don’t like this. I mean, I mean–bad enough you have me dealing with the Shadows…..and Mr. Morden, and keeping all your secrets……I just can’t take this any more, I–All right. I’ll sand the doors. But this is the last time, Londo.
Marcus: All right then, I’ll just go and…sand doors, yes….and then that’ll be the high point of my day. See you.
Further suggestions are welcome.
Let’s play Count the Candidates
….because right now, they’re more fun than handmaidens. This took place in the car on the way home today.
Kelson: “I’ve heard 193, 195, and 196. Where’d those numbers come from?”
Katie: “Two minutes, five minutes, and ten minutes later.”
Kelson: “I mean, the deadline was Saturday!”
Katie: “‘Uh-oh, it was stuck to somebody else’s. ….It was stapled to the chicken.'”
Kelson: (smirking) “Peer pressure.”
Katie: “So we have one stapled to the chicken, one peer pressure, and two stuck to other people’s. So who turned in the chicken?”
Kelson: (laughter)
Katie: “I know, it was filling out the forms as it went.”
Kelson: “No wonder they’re so hard to read!”
…..kind of like my notes on this conversation…..