Overheard in the office

"Hong Kong is the capital of Japan, believe me I know."

*sigh*

While I'm here, I'd like to say how much today's youth are ruined by chat programs and the internet. Since when is it ok to end every sentence with two-five question marks? Like this?????
Why would you use the letters r, u, c, etc to talk to people in a professional environment (chat tech support)? Or should I say ????

What ever happened to saying, "How may I assist you?" versus "wuts wrong??"

How about some grammar, using capital letters at the beginning of a sentence, spelling words correctly, punctuation or polite banter? If you can't spell, it's OK...we have a spell checker. Why do you keep canceling the spell checker?

I'm beginning to think that this is a sign of growing older. As a coworker said, "Those whipper-snappers" are so unprofessional. Have I just gotten to a point where I actually am older and wiser (am I in denial)? It just seems these terrible chat habits are just that...terrible!

Blogger issue...yet again

Now Blogger isn't uploading the word verification images. This means nobody can comment on blogs! ARG! I really wanted to comment on Faythe's Iron Chef mint themed dinner next month.

Not teen spirit.

There's about six or seven temps in our large cubicle right now. It smells like sneeze.

Update: 7:53, it now smells like sweat and onions. We have around nine temps. You'd think that smell would escape a cube but, well I guess not.

I can't sleep

Nope. In preparation for tonights 1AM shift, I stayed up late and only slept in a little. My plan was to take a nap today and get up at 11. Well, it's just not going to happen. I am tired but there's no way I'm going to be able to sleep. This shift is going to be painful.

I started knitting a new washcloth. At least with this one there's no pooling. I bought another ball of varigated cotton yarn so I'm probably going to have to just live with it. I also bought a C crochet hook since Faythe says it's what I need to knit a certain lace scarf I want to make.

Jen made these little bags for me. I'm going to use them for carrying small objects when I don't want to carry a purse. I included the fingernail polish bottle for scale.

I'm feeling a little sleepy. Maybe I can catch an hour of sleep?

Not my eye again!

Tonight my right eye started hurting so I took out my contacts. It kept hurting so I went to check on it in the mirror and it was red...actually a sort of cloudy red. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the membrane that covers the white part of the eye was swollen, like a bubble in an innertube. I could actually see my eye poking out past my eyelids! The swelling stopped at the edge of my iris though, thank goodness. And when I looked to the right, the swollen membrane would sort of poke out. Did I already say that it hurt?

So, I started to get concerned a bit. Actually I think the words I used when chatting with Jen were "freaked out." After all, I am starting the graveyard shift Monday morning and would like to be as healthy as possible. I tried to call Elaine, who is a nurse, but her line was busy. I then called my Mom who tried not to alarm me - insert some vague conversation of going blind here - but suggested I go to the ER. I thought this might be a little extreme (and I am tight with money) so I tried Elaine again. She thought I was having some sort of pollen or other allergen reaction. She recommended putting ice in a wet waschoth on my eye for a couple hours (I did it for 1 hour) and then calling her back. After about 45 minutes I felt totally better! My eye didn't hurt at all and was only a bit pink.


Um, what was I going to say next? I got distracted by a SNL rerun. I'm so tired. Crap. At this time tomorrow I'll be at work, for Gods sakes! How AM I GOING TO DO IT!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!!

California lawmakers are so greedy

That's right! According to recent reports, an independent commission has voted to give California officers an 18% raise. Who is this independent commission?? And how independent are they!

This means lawmakers salaries are raised from $110,880 to=- $113,097, the highest paid in the nation. New York lawmakers, the second highest paid, make $79, 500.

Does this not freak anyone else out?

The governor's salary was also raised from $175,000 to $206,500! Unknown to me, Arnold Schwarzenegger has refused his salary since he took office. I'm impressed!

Meanwhile, this state continues to run its popularity contests aka elections and run itself into the ground. Schools are barely able to educate with their budgets and police officers are leaving major cities like San Diego because pay is too low. Nice California, nice.

Bad attitude

Tonight I was going to post about the events of last night when Adonis came to stay with us. I won't be doing that though. I'm too tired. I took a two and a half hour nap tonight and am biding my time until a proper bedtime so I can go back to sleep.

Zoe is in trouble. She hissed at Simba and chased him into the bedroom. She's a little more than half his size, but she sat in the doorway to make sure he wouldn't try to come out. So I picked her up and she started growling like a lunatic. Her punishment is timeout in the bathroom. Right now she's throwing her body at the door, apparently, punctuating it with an occasional innocent meow. Usually Simba would come sit at the door and lobby to get her let out but not this time. His feelers are hurt.


update: I just let Zoe out. She's forgotten about her bad attitude and now just wants to be rubbed.

Today has been a long, trying day. It's days like this that make a person want to pack up and move out of state. Or at least dust off some resume paper.

Summer tv

You've heard of B-Movies right? Well, it appears that right now we're being inundated with B-Television shows. The kind of shows that wouldn't make it in the regular season but are barely OK for now because, well, there isn't anything else on.

Honestly, I'd rather watch reruns of Seinfeld or South Park. But I do occassionally get stuck watching one of these stupid shows that are currently flooding the airways. Show's I've been forced to watch are So You Think You Can Dance, Tuesday Night Bookclub, and the show that takes the cake, America's Got Talent. The judges are this guy I don't know called Piers, Brandy and David Hasselhoff. So far the most annoying part of the show is David Hasselhoff. One of the most awkward parts of the show was when this overly precocious 8-year-old did some standup comedy about black fat people. Sure, she was of the African American descent, but you could hear the whole audience take a breath and go completely silent. That didn't stop her though...she kept talkin about fat.


To soothe my nerves, I thought I'd head on over to Knitpicks and order some yarn so I can start on a new project. Well guess what! Apparently they're having server problems!! ARGH!

Tomorrow I'll be bringing home Adonis, Jen's little white kitty. I'm a little nervous about it but we'll see how my cats react first. We're going to network and see if there's anyone we know who wants a kitty but we're picky about potential owners. They have to be worthy! Not everyone is qualified! I'm looking forward to having a new cat in the house though. It'll definitely make things interesting around here! I'm sure the cats will post about it...

Anyway, off to bed. I don't think I can handle this stupid talent show any longer.

Gift from Peanut

To my surprise, today I received a package from Peanut. I had heard that her Mommy found her ordering things on the internet but I had no idea what lovely gifts she purchased for me! I opened the box to find this beautiful Lantern Moon Needle Case! I put some needles in it real quick so you could see what it looks like. It has a large zipper pocket on the left, the middle is for circular needles and the right side is for straight needles.

Zoe liked it too...she kept trying to bury her nose into the fabric.



See how it folds up? It ties with a silk ribbon.


*sigh* I can see I'm going to have to keep this up out of the reach of certain four footed people.







Here's a closeup of the fabric (click for an even better view). The silk is so beautiful!








Oh yes, and there's the yarn! It's Knitpicks Shine in Green Apple and Crocus. I just LOVE this yarn! I can't wait to make something...I'll have to start combing through my books for ideas.

Thanks Peanut!

Interesting...

Sometimes I have a hard time getting a good nights sleep. Often it's due to the usual insomnia issues. But usually it's because I go to bed too late. I just love nights, I'm a night person. The only reason I go to bed is because either my eyes hurt too much to keep open or because I know I need at least five hours of sleep to survive at work.

Saturday night I went to bed late and didn't sleep well. So that morning I slept in on the couch. I had a dream I was in a situation just like War of the Worlds. So much that even Tom Cruise was there!

We were running and hiding from the giant alien-beings who were bashing in the two story mall we were in. It was pretty damn scary. Anyway, at one point Tom and I decided we were going to die so we might as well enjoy our last minute and we.....well, we kissed. I know, I KNOW! But in my dream it was the sweetest, best kiss I have ever had in my life. And believe me, I've had some kisses that would rock your world, baby!

*sigh* The kiss woke me from a dead sleep. I remembered it. But then I realized why I dreamed about War of the Worlds; Apollo was playing a video game that had doom-and-gloom sort of music. I'm not sure about the kiss though. That's weird because I'm not attracted to Tom Cruise. Though I feel much better about him after watching Mission Impossible III, I am still a little creeped out by him.

But then, last night I had another interesting dream. I was at my grandma's in Oregon and my kitty Zoe ran across the road. For some reason, one of my coworkers, "Bob," (name changed to protect his identity) was driving a Hummer down the gravel road at top speed. He slammed on the breaks and Zoe hid under his Hummer. The Hummer is funny because it's not a Bob type vehicle.

Suddenly Bob is next to me (you know how dreams are) and we're talking to the family aka grandma, grandpa, cousins, etc. And then out of nowhere, Bob plants a big wet one on my lips, twice! It wasn't romantic, but I remember it. Yes, I do. Because my friend Bob and I, well we're friends only and he's already involved with someone else, a male person. I never think of him in this sense! EVER! It's just weird man, weird. I told Bob about the dream. I was worried it would freak him out but it didn't. It's pretty funny if you ask me. (Maybe if he would stop staring at my...well...heheee.)

Tonight I'm wondering if I'll have another one of these kissing dreams and if so, who and why! I'm sure Freud would have something interesting to say.

Memoirs of a Geisha

I finally saw the movie today. It was filmed beautifully, I'm really glad I saw it. But frankly, I'm disappointed that it didn't follow the book more closely. I guess I'll have to read it again to be fully satisfied. If you liked the movie, please read the book. There's so much more to this beautiful story!

Frogged...almost

I started frogging but made a mistake. I decided to wind the yarn up using the other end of the yarn. This of course resulted in a bit of a mess. I'm pretty patient with yarn knots, I've untangled more than I care to think about. At one point I got up to use the bathroom and when I came back, Simba had discovered the yarn and was lying on his back on the floor doing his best imitation of a kitten with a ball of fun. I wasn't even surprised, I didn't get mad. I just picked up the yarn and put it away. Really, it's my fault. Ever since the incident involving Simba and a hank of lace alpaca I try to be careful and put the yarncrack away. It's just too tempting for Simba.

Frog and pool, how ironic

*sigh* OK, so I'm knitting this washcloth, it's helping me to meditate. The problem is, it's pooling. I've been trying to ignore it. I...I just don't know if I can take it anymore.

I could continue on since I've gone this far. But I still have about 2/3 of it to knit. And it's not going to stop pooling either. And when I'm done...I'll stare at it and think about the pooling.

Apollo just told me he likes it like this. So now I have to decide. Frog?

Happy Father's Day!

I can't remember if I mentioned that Apollo got his grill. I just love Amazon.com...he received it several days before they guestimated. He was pretty happy too because he thought I was expecting a book. When I got home from work, the cats were taking turns playing king of the hill on the box, yes it was huge!

Since we've gotten the grill, we've had grilled steak, hamburgers, links, etc. If I remember correctly, we ate grilled food for a week straight! Now that it's gotten a little hotter outside, he's not grilling as much.

Simba posted some pictures about the grill. Isn't he just a ham? He loves getting his pictures taken.

He and Zoe are disapointed about the lack of grilling since every time Apollo goes outside to check on the meat, he brings in a leave of catnip. *sigh* Yes, I have little drug addict cats. Especially Zoe...her meow screams, "I need it!"

Curious Cat

When I work from home I use the elliptical for 30 minutes on my lunch break. Simba is really curious about the whole thing. He sits on the back of the eliptical and watches the pedals swing back and forth. It's really cute. When Apollo tried to take a picture of him, he moved. This is the best photo we could get...I guess you'll have to use your imagination. :)

hehehe

I recently thought it would be funny if there was a goodie bowl in the bathroom. I have this funky orange glass bowl that doesn't really have a use, so I took it and filled it full of goodies and put it on the back of the toilet. Mostly I did it as a joke and to see what Apollo would do.

Oddly, he didn't seem to care. He said, "It's OK," but I could see the fear in his eyes. Anyway, the goodie bowl was left alone so I could snicker at it occassionally. Nobody uses our bathroom so it was really my own private joke.

Some time later, it's still sitting there. I come home from work and Apollo is upset. He tells me how "my boys" were here watching basketball and then how "they all used the bathroom" - and he forgot to hide the goodie bowl! HEHEHEHEHE!!

Nobody said a thing either! He was really embarassed. The goodie bowl has been retired. Poor Apollo.

Cat chases bear??

Apparently Jack the 15 lb cat is a little territorial. He chased this bear up a tree - twice!

Really for her pleasure!

Thanks to Karyn for sending this photo to me. I just couldn't pass it up, I had to share.

Zoe's so cute

If you know Zoe then you know she doesn't trust much. She's naturally suspicious and acts like she may be attacked at any time. It's pretty funny sometimes when she walks into the bedroom and scouts out the room like there could be an attacker hiding in the shadows. God forbid if there's a sock on the floor!

She just got done checking out the penny on the rug, that's how suspicious of everything she is. I love how she stands! Her body language here pretty much says it all.

Vons Italian Primo sandwich

This is probably one of the best sandwiches I've had in a while. Apollo discovered them at Von's deli. For those of you without a Vons, Safeway is a sister company so if you're lucky they'll carry the same delicious sandwich.


It has Black Forest ham, salami, provolone cheese, pepperoncini's, a cream cheese mixture, black olives, a green olive mixture, and maybe a few more items. Obviously it's not artery hardening enough so Apollo has them add bacon. He also has them toast it (I'm not sure if this is part of the normal procedure). You can get your choice of bread. All for under $5.

If you haven't tried it, go now. Get it. There's a bunch of other sandwiches too if this one doesn't meat your liking.

Matinee Coat

I finally saw Jen at work this week so I brought in the Debbie Bliss Matinee Coat I knit up for Peanut. Finally, I can post a picture now that she's seen it! I've been done for about a month or so...


I liked knitting this, maybe I'll make another one. I really liked the cashmere blend yarn too...I may have to get more.

Something you want to see, something you don't want to see

I saw Mission Impossible III yesterday, it was great!! I avoided the movie for a while since Tom Cruise has been acting crazy. But Apollo wanted to see it so there we were in the theater all by ourselves, nobody else in our private livingroom. Unfortunately, a few minutes before it started, five more people joined us. GAH!

So, the movie started out pretty well. One of Cruises first lines were "Listen, listen!" And I could see the now familiar crazed look in his eye...I half expected him to say, "Listen, YOU don't know psychiatry, I know psychiatry!" But to my surprise, I completely forgot about his late oddities as I became immersed in the film. Or is it because Cruise was playing himself in this movie? I could believe that.

So yeah, I recommend the movie. I liked it. If you like action movies, you will regret not seeing it.

After the movie, I made a quick stop to powder my nose in the restroom. This chick washed her hands next to me and then said, "Oh my God, look at my eye. It's pink, I think the pink-eye is back!" She then proceeded to touch and poke at her eye with both hands, stretching it in different directions and talking about how gross and swollen it was! She showed it to her friend all the while complaining, "I hate it when I have pink-eye" and then walked out the door, pushing it open with both hands.

I pushed the door open with my shoulder, thankful that I am germ phobic in public restrooms. I guess I'll keep flushing the toilet with my foot and using paper towels to turn doorknobs, etc.

pink-eye *shudder*

My latest project

I've been "out of knit" lately. It may be work related or maybe because I'm uninspired to make anything with the yarn I have. Of course, this calls for an order from Knitpicks. :) In the meantime, I decided to knit up that beanie I've been promising Apollo. There isn't much else he's interested in, other then possibly a sweater. So I bought this yarn that has rayon in it making it nice and elasticy. Tonight while I was talking to Faythe online, I just about finished the beanie when The Hate transcended across the net and somehow made me drop a stitch while I was cinching up the top of the hat! When I told Faythe, she "clapped her hands with glee" or some other nonsense. After frogging back a few rows and knitting them back, I finally finished the beanie just a few minutes ago.

As you can see, there's not much special about the beanie. To dress up the photo, I included Simba checking it out. Yeah, this basic black beanie is that boring.

POSTSECRET

POSTSECRET

People anonymously send post cards to this site with secrets written on them.

Oh yeah, something else about that grill

The first grill photo shown in the post below is a grill from WalMart! Yeah, they actually have grills!

But I forgot to tell you the good part. They had two of these Royal Oak Special Edition grills set up in the store. But, they were falling apart! The guy who worked in that department claimed it was because people were playing with them too much. I'm not so sure about that - besides, if it's true its because people were playing with them, don't you think they should be manufactured better so they could stand the test of time? Anyway, the big tray under the grill was crooked and wouldn't set flat. The lid on one of them wouldn't stay connected to its hinges. On another, the tray that holds the charcoal was set up lopsided and wouldn't raise up and down. Wheels were falling off and one grill threatened to tip over. There were a bunch of other problems, but you get the idea.

The metal was so thin, you could push it in with your finger and it would pop! I wondered if it would hold in heat and how quickly it would warp.

But the funniest part is when the guy who worked for WalMart told Apollo that they would assemble it for free. Apollo actually started laughing! And he wouldn't stop! I was mortified...the employee just stared at Apollo. Finally Apollo said, "You've got to be kidding me, like the ones you have here on the floor?"...and kept on laughing.

I wish I could laugh at someone in the face like that. hehe It was funny.

Grilling time!

It is with a sigh I write this post - again. See, I'd just about finished it a few minutes ago when I made a mistake and tried the Recover Post hyperlink. You know what it did? It gave me a freakin blank post, that's what it did!! I had just finished my whole story about grills and the Puff Daddy look...*sigh*

You've been warned!! WARNED I SAY! Watch out for this little monster:

Anyway, I recently got a small bonus and wanted to get Apollo an early birthday gift. OK to be honest, it's for both of us because I will be reaping the benefits from this grill as well. I should just openly accept that this is for both of us. I don't know why I keep making excuses to buy it.

It all started a few weeks ago. I got home from work at 7PM and said, hey, lets go look for a grill. A basketball game was on but Apollo turned off the tv and was out the door before I could put down my laptop. While at the intersection, we made a plan. We strategically planned the stores we would visit based on their geographical location: Lowes, Costco, HomeDepot, Target and WalMart.
He had his eye on this one. He liked that the lid was enclosed and it had those two little ledges. The enclosed lid is a really good idea since we have an awkward, small "back 40." But, the metal was so thin. Plus, it's huge! Our patio is enclosed in bamboo and aged cedar, I knew this wasn't going to work.

This guy got Apollo's attention too. I agree, it is pretty cool. You can grill AND smoke stuff! But then I read something about being able to grill 20 burgers at once or something and I thought, exactly who is he grilling for?? I asked him and he said, "You, me, Big Mac, maybe Tee, Lil Erv." I convinced him it probably wasn't the grill we're looking for. Plus, when you open it up, it practically doubles in size and that chimney thing would bump up against our flammable fence. No, not good. Not good at all. I could just imagine my flower boxes going up in flames...

Considering that 99% of the grills in all the stores are gas grills, our options were limited. Plus, Apollo wouldn't be caught dead using a gas grill! If he did, he may have to have a few Real Man Points taken away. After some research online, I started reading about grills at Amazon.com. Then, I ran across Weber grills. Now, at first I was hesitant. When I see these grills, I think of the Brady Bunch, bell bottoms, plaid jackets...they just seemed old fashioned. But then I realized, they're "old" because they've been around for a while - for good reason!

This One-Touch Gold 22-1/2inch Charcoal Grill caught my eye. The One-Touch cleaning system sweeps the ashes into the ash catcher (that gray thing under the grill) so you only have to clean it out occasionally! Plus, it's a huge improvement over the Silver which merely has a dish that catches the ashes. Imagine what a mess that would make! Did you see this grill is 22-1/2 inches? To grasp the full magnitude of its size, get a measuring tape and pull it out until you hit 22-1/2 inches....Yeah, that's what Apollo said too! We even went back to Home Depot and looked at the 22-1/2 grills to "make sure" it was big enough to cook "enough food." (sheesh) It passed!

So the good news is, I placed my order for the grill last night through Amazon.com. You can also buy it special-order from Home Depot but they wanted to charge a $36 delivery fee, even though when I talked to them on the phone they said there was no such fee. Amazon is cool. Most orders at Amazon, if over $25, qualify for free shipping, as long as you don't mind a slightly longer wait. Of course, I don't mind. Plus, the estimated arrival date on this bad boy is June 6th. Not bad at all!

The fun part is Apollo has no idea I placed the order! He knows I've been looking at the grill online but he also knows I'm obsessive and will spend days, if not weeks, thinking about whether or not I want to buy something.

Now last night, I showed him this. I'm telling you, he did a spot-on impression of Puff Daddy with his mouth hanging wide open! It was so funny! Of course, we cannot get this accessory right now, it is completely out of my budget but you can bet I will start hearing about how he needs this special rotissiere for turkey, roasts, etc.

So now, the wait is on. Sometime on or around the 6th of this month, The Grill will be delivered and Apollo will be as giddy as a little kid on Christmas Day! I can't wait!

Now that I've rewritten this, I think it's much better than the first time around. I almost hate to admit it. grrr

Dreams

I just read over at Faythe's about dreams and it reminded me *OH THE HORROR* of a dream I had last night. Actually, to fully understand why I'm telling you this story, please go over to Faythe's blog right now! I'll wait.

*waiting*

Anyway, it was quite eerie actually, almost a premonition of things to come! I woke up in a cold sweat and threw a pillow at the vaccuum cleaner, I was so freaked out. I was just making sure it wasn't a person or something like a monster (of course!), which also freaked out Zoe who jumped and ran away.
But this dream, I don't even know if you could call it a dream, it was more of a, well, extremely bad BAD nightmare! I knew that my day was shot! For you sensitive types, I will stop here, but for the more adventurous, please click on the cute little beanie below for the details.

BTW, I'm looking for this beanie pattern, if you know where I can find it, let me know. Thanks.


If the beanie link doesn't work, try this one.