News Flash. Today, a person was found bound and gagged with red tape. The un-identified female had just finished two more applications for scholarships and assistantships at various colleges around the United States when she began making phone calls. First, the University of Illinois had lost her application into a spam mail account. This situation was eventually solved when the application was found by the surprised account owner in Champaign, IL. Secondly, the victim called the University of Texas who said that their application was due not, April 1st, but March 1st. After an episode of dueling computers, the victim won the momentary battle when the secretary found the in-question application online and asked her supervisor about the change. The supervisor revealed that the awards committee had made the decision and changed the website without notifying the staff. They wanted to make the assistantships open to first year students. What a concept.
The final situation was a work related incident. The victim’s supervisor has promised another month of temp work, but victim’s mailbox was confiscated, and it is possible that her temp agency does not yet know about the extended job offer. Luckily, either way the victim can pay for rent next month, but the situation remains intense, and the red tape might yet choke the female. A phone call to the temp agency during hours tomorrow will clarify the situation. Hopefully, the victim will not be completely strangled by the red tape but merely maimed.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Batteries: The Next Great Commodity
My life now revolves around little AA batteries. Without them, my life is desolate. I begin to despair.
Why might you ask are batteries so important? I ask why not. These beautiful metallic shiny cylinders of contained energy are not only ascetically pleasing, but they have single handedly kept me from going completely insane. (As is well known, I’ve been insane for a long time, but my AAs are keeping me from hospitalization.)
My temp job has reached a place of zen. I can do my data entry assignments with almost no thinking. I must keep a little of my mind on task though. If I try to talk to my neighbors, I work too slow. But if I just work, my mind wanders too much. And my mind can be a cesspool of self-debt and second guessing, weird ideas and impossible plans. I learned this long ago from driving tractor 12 hours a day. I would finally be in my padded room, calmly institutionalized, and on meds if it wasn’t for… batteries.
We aren’t allowed to use to computer cd player. We might bring a virus. We can’t plug in any electronics. That’s misuse of company electricity. So I rely on batteries. I started with my little tape player/ walkman/ radio that looks like I bought it in the early 90s. It picks up 5 radio stations, and to pick up those, I sometimes have to lean in certain directions to make the reception better. One talk, one christian, one country, one modern filth (vs. the music I actually like from this decade), and one 70s (sometimes distressingly annoying, sometimes kick-my-shoes-off-and-dance good). I could survive off this alone, but it requires those precious batteries. Luckily for me, if I only listen to the radio and play no tapes, 2 batteries can last over a week.
I’ve been upping the ante recently. I’ve started listening to cds on my bright cherry red, portable cd player. For those of you who know that I’m a cheap-scape that I own almost no cds except bargain basket castaways…. I’ve been checking good music out of the library. But after 3 weeks of Gershwin, Etta James, and Diana Krall, I’m about to die of lovesickness. I’m not sure yet if the music causes my to be sick in want of love or sick of love, but I decided to move away from the sappy jazz; however good and entertaining it is.
Now, I’m moving on to books on CD. I started with books on tape, but when my little tape player/ radio to a flying dive off my desk, the little nob got the walkman stuck on radio, and I can’t play tapes anymore. Unfortunately, this is a great battery waste. My little cd player will burn up 2 AA batteries in 12 hours easy. Considering I can listen at work to my CD player for 4-5 hours a night easily, this is an expensive hobby. So what’s my brilliant plan? I buy a battery charger with rechargeable batteries. Except then I dropped that too, and now it doesn’t work either. (By the way, my walkman dropped 4 times before the little nob broke. It only took the battery charger once.) AHHHH. The INSANITY. Luckily, my old batteries held out tonight. I was able to finish the last Amelia Peabody mystery by switching inbetween old batteries. Tomorrow, I will try to refund my battery charge and fix my predicament.
Then, it’s back to work. And for my next book on cd. It’s a biography on CS Lewis. Fun and educational. See I don’t need straightjacket…not yet…
Why might you ask are batteries so important? I ask why not. These beautiful metallic shiny cylinders of contained energy are not only ascetically pleasing, but they have single handedly kept me from going completely insane. (As is well known, I’ve been insane for a long time, but my AAs are keeping me from hospitalization.)
My temp job has reached a place of zen. I can do my data entry assignments with almost no thinking. I must keep a little of my mind on task though. If I try to talk to my neighbors, I work too slow. But if I just work, my mind wanders too much. And my mind can be a cesspool of self-debt and second guessing, weird ideas and impossible plans. I learned this long ago from driving tractor 12 hours a day. I would finally be in my padded room, calmly institutionalized, and on meds if it wasn’t for… batteries.
We aren’t allowed to use to computer cd player. We might bring a virus. We can’t plug in any electronics. That’s misuse of company electricity. So I rely on batteries. I started with my little tape player/ walkman/ radio that looks like I bought it in the early 90s. It picks up 5 radio stations, and to pick up those, I sometimes have to lean in certain directions to make the reception better. One talk, one christian, one country, one modern filth (vs. the music I actually like from this decade), and one 70s (sometimes distressingly annoying, sometimes kick-my-shoes-off-and-dance good). I could survive off this alone, but it requires those precious batteries. Luckily for me, if I only listen to the radio and play no tapes, 2 batteries can last over a week.
I’ve been upping the ante recently. I’ve started listening to cds on my bright cherry red, portable cd player. For those of you who know that I’m a cheap-scape that I own almost no cds except bargain basket castaways…. I’ve been checking good music out of the library. But after 3 weeks of Gershwin, Etta James, and Diana Krall, I’m about to die of lovesickness. I’m not sure yet if the music causes my to be sick in want of love or sick of love, but I decided to move away from the sappy jazz; however good and entertaining it is.
Now, I’m moving on to books on CD. I started with books on tape, but when my little tape player/ radio to a flying dive off my desk, the little nob got the walkman stuck on radio, and I can’t play tapes anymore. Unfortunately, this is a great battery waste. My little cd player will burn up 2 AA batteries in 12 hours easy. Considering I can listen at work to my CD player for 4-5 hours a night easily, this is an expensive hobby. So what’s my brilliant plan? I buy a battery charger with rechargeable batteries. Except then I dropped that too, and now it doesn’t work either. (By the way, my walkman dropped 4 times before the little nob broke. It only took the battery charger once.) AHHHH. The INSANITY. Luckily, my old batteries held out tonight. I was able to finish the last Amelia Peabody mystery by switching inbetween old batteries. Tomorrow, I will try to refund my battery charge and fix my predicament.
Then, it’s back to work. And for my next book on cd. It’s a biography on CS Lewis. Fun and educational. See I don’t need straightjacket…not yet…
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
It's Time for a New Post!
Howdy. I figure it’s about time I write again. Joanna, this one’s for you. Wait, I’ll take that back. This blog will not be for you. You will get a blog dedicated to you when I actually have something to write about. Tonight, I’m truly going to write about nothing.
I though about writing about my blind date, which did go fairly well, but luckily for Justin, I’m not good at talking about such topics to large crowds. Hi, Justin, if your reading.
So what to write about…. Hmmm. Nothing strikes me as interesting after the killer cabbages. Part of the problem is I have a cold, which I figure I deserve. On Sunday at house church, I was all bragging about flu shots and the fact that I haven’t been sick since October, so it only serves to figure that I get sick. Monday, I had little chills and a head that I wanted to chop off my body. But, MEDCO still got 8 hours of work out of me, and then I slept 9, maybe 10 hours. I’m better today but still warding it off. Perhaps the Hilary Duff movie scared my cold away. I watched The Perfect Man this morning. Actually, it wasn’t bad, but it had high rate of embarassment for all of the characters involved. There was a cameo by the city of Wichita at the beginning. Go, Wichita! It was an example of how far some people are willing to run away from civilization. There was a close up of its water tower, but that’s about it.
Personally, I think the movie people have it backwards. It’s the people of the plains that are civilized. But in the end, that doesn’t explain why I’m not currently living in the plains. Or maybe it does…
Well, goodnight. I hope this blog entry continues to meet expectations despite the lack of focus.
OH, and I almost forgot. Elmer Fud didn’t raise cabbages. They were eggplants. At least, that is my most recent recollection of the episode.
I though about writing about my blind date, which did go fairly well, but luckily for Justin, I’m not good at talking about such topics to large crowds. Hi, Justin, if your reading.
So what to write about…. Hmmm. Nothing strikes me as interesting after the killer cabbages. Part of the problem is I have a cold, which I figure I deserve. On Sunday at house church, I was all bragging about flu shots and the fact that I haven’t been sick since October, so it only serves to figure that I get sick. Monday, I had little chills and a head that I wanted to chop off my body. But, MEDCO still got 8 hours of work out of me, and then I slept 9, maybe 10 hours. I’m better today but still warding it off. Perhaps the Hilary Duff movie scared my cold away. I watched The Perfect Man this morning. Actually, it wasn’t bad, but it had high rate of embarassment for all of the characters involved. There was a cameo by the city of Wichita at the beginning. Go, Wichita! It was an example of how far some people are willing to run away from civilization. There was a close up of its water tower, but that’s about it.
Personally, I think the movie people have it backwards. It’s the people of the plains that are civilized. But in the end, that doesn’t explain why I’m not currently living in the plains. Or maybe it does…
Well, goodnight. I hope this blog entry continues to meet expectations despite the lack of focus.
OH, and I almost forgot. Elmer Fud didn’t raise cabbages. They were eggplants. At least, that is my most recent recollection of the episode.
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