Really, now, don't we all feel like this sometimes

Dog tired, I mean. And don't they truly look the part. They're Labs and even though they're playing they look like Labs - all sad-faced and sleepy.

Tomorrow is the 1st of October, did you know and the darkness seems to fall with a palpable thud now ... so be cheered by the picture, dangitall.


Well, truth be told I love the dark and before having the pups around, I used to go walking at night. On purpose, even.

Walking with the dogs, however, now creeps me out - just a little bit, mind, but makes me more aware of my surroundings all the same. We shan't be analysing why this is. It just ... is.

Well, okay, I already have it figured out but do you really and truly want to visit my psyche. I didn't think so.

K, so I'm guessing you've already figured out there's not a whole lot of firing synapses on this side of the screen at the moment. Nope, not a lot of thought, random or otherwise, going on. This is where the clever person would just exit, before proving all the keys have been struck at least once and the brain is empty.

Oh, wait. Z. There, now we can quit.

Hmmm, I've had to come back several times to edit this post as blogger seems to be toying with the scale of the font so if this appears even more odd than usual as you read along at some future point (and of course it will be a future point - you're not here beside me now, are you), I didn't do it!

Pointless photo of the day:

This should be brief. I don't feel well (er, once more with more whinge: I don't feeeeel well) and am unexpectedly stuck at work since we're down a person. I really don't want to be here, but I don't feel the need to share the love (the loathe?) with the internet at large today.

You're welcome.

If you're lacking in reading material, though, you can always head over to Stephen Fry's blog and spend a couple of hours reading two of the longest posts (blessays, sorry) in blogging history. They're entertaining, as you'd expect of the man, but it's pretty obvious that somebody out there doesn't have writer's block.

And yes, I know I'm about the last person on the web to get around to linking to that blog. I'm a little slow.

I'm also more than a little queasy. Food hasn't been sitting well these past couple of days, and apparently that hasn't changed. I'm rather regretting the junk food that was disguising itself as lunch just now.

Was that last a bit TMI?

Yeah, probably.

I'm about done anyway, so I'll stop before I'm tempted to get more descriptive. I won't be near a computer tomorrow (the way things are going, I may plan to just stay in bed) so it's up to the Toronto office to be interesting.

Or pointless.





Either works.

So my guess ...

.... is that this being the same small town where the wedding took place (many posts ago), this is the first step to watering the fire trucks. No, silly - not to make them grow or give them sustenance - to fill 'em up to fight fires. Even if I'm wrong (and who'd ever think that) it's a pretty picture. Or at least I think it's a pretty picture and since I was given the password to the blog ... well, you know. That's right. You're stuck with what I think is worth posting.

As opposed to searching frantically for something out of the ordinary to post.

Ah, the weather in Toronto, you ask. Well it's a mere 11 degrees on the Celsius scale which is more than that on the Fahrenheit scale. Sue me. It's early and I don't do conversions before noon...or conversations either, as I almost typed. Oh! Look, I did.

Can you tell this blog brings out the ... erm.... well, not best ....

Okay, then, can you tell this blog sometimes brings out the writer's block in all of us?


Me too.

Should I mention that right after the above-noted photo was taken the fire trucks did, indeed, line up to drink? No, it's probably self-explanatory and needn't be said.

Right, going then.

I don't know

I had to go back up and edit the title a bit after I decided to use this photo. Originally this was just going to be a whinge about feeling generally like I never have the answers to the questions I'm asked around here (don't worry -- I get like that some times. There's only so many things you can say "I don't know" to before you start feeling juuust a little bit useless and sorry for yourself), but then I realised that since I actually do know what's in the photograph I'd better get off the pouty chair and admit that occasionally I do know some things.

Like the fact that the (blurry because the autofocus didn't believe it was there) strange-looking thing on the leaf in the photo is a ladybird beetle pupa.

Oh, and there's also a ladybird larva towards the top there.

These particular ladybirds are hanging around on my balcony, which is sort of an unfortunate choice because one of these days I might even get around to cleaning out the planter boxes. It'll happen ladybirds or no ladybirds... although I'll feel badly if they haven't completed their metamorphosis before then.

I'm getting weird in my old age. I never used to feel badly about insects.

I never used to feel anything (except maybe revulsion) about insects, to be honest.




Yep, definitely weird.

Let's end with that then, shall we? I need to get back to my weird job anyway.

Pointless grape leaf photo of the day:

The not-artificially-colour-enhanced version, as promised yesterday.

Not really worth the wait? Yeah, I agree.

----------

I'm sitting here in my jacket at the moment because for whatever reason I've been cold all day.

Cold makes me cranky.

So do many other things.

Wine gums don't though. Full points to Wheat for that. I generally tend to give credit where credit is due, you know.

Snakes who won't eat when I need them to, however, do make me cranky. Especially when I'm delaying my own lunch to play stupid dead mouse games with the aforementioned snakes.

Dead mouse games, yes. You didn't think that we allow the snakes in on the Wednesday wine gums, did you? That'd be an unnecessary waste of good sugar.




This is all you're getting today, you know. Cold, cranky, and gimpy do not make for a verbose me.

And really, the world should be thankful for that.

A note to the ladies:

You're disgusting.

In public washrooms, I mean. Yes, I'm speaking to all you hover pee-ers and foot flushers. You know, the ones responsible for the wet seats and the broken levers. Ninety-nine percent of the things you morons seem so terrified of aren't a problem if you JUST WASH YOUR FRIGGING HANDS WHEN YOU'RE DONE. That's all that's needed.

And fergodsake stop leaving those little bits of toilet paper all over the floor. Geez. Do you do that at home? Huh? Is that how your mothers raised you?

If so, your mothers deserve a good paddling. And then they should have to scrub out the cubicles and replace the toilet mechanisms.

Just saying.

----------

Ok, now that we have that out of the way I'd better let you know that today's pointless photo is, in fact,a purposefully screwed-up one. You probably suspected that, right? I was mucking about with the photoeditor and the autofix decided to crank the contrast on this grape leaf up to ridiculous levels.

I liked it.

I have another photo on my nerdstick that has more natural colours. Maybe I'll use it tomorrow by way of contrast.

If I remember.

Tomorrow's a long way away, after all.




Tonight, however, isn't. If there's anyone -- ANYONE -- in the t.v. club who thinks they can claim that I didn't give them enough notice, you're so so SO very wrong at this point.

It's outta my hands.

I've done all I can do short of phoning you all individually.
And I don't like you enough to phone you all individually.





I could text, I suppose.
If I weren't so lazy.





And if I cared.

Or if I was decently bribed.
Or maybe indecently bribed.

Have I mentioned that it's Tuesday today? And that tonight is Tuesday night?

I thought so.






Do you get the feeling that this post is more or less finished? Yeah, me too.

Fashion statement

Yes, that would be the arse end of my father's dog you're looking at. She's taken to wearing socks.

Well, one sock.

She has a bit of a foot-pad thing going on, which has led to the strangeness of seeing a dog with the world's most sensitive feet (as in don't you dare even think of THINKING of touching my toes EVER) actually looking forward to having a sock put on before going outside.

It's kind of amusing.

Sadly, that's the only news of interest I have to report today. I didn't have the world's best sleep (and not even a boat-sized bathtub in sight to relieve things), and a commercial yesterday had the gall to remind me that Thanksgiving's only a couple of Mondays away.

The thought hadn't occurred to me before then. What exactly happened to September?





Anyway, since it's already obvious that nothing much is coming out of this brain I don't think I'll bother forcing it. Forced brain's got a pretty disgusting texture when it comes to it, really. Not very appetizing next to the turkey on the holiday table.

You're welcome for that mental picture.

Going now.

Sigh

Marcel Marceau.

Even if you don't like mimes it's sad to see this, I think.

Pointless photo of the day:

We haven't had any insect porn for a while. I figured it was time.

----------

I've been too busy singing along with the internet radio this morning to bother coming up with a post. I thought about relating the very weird dream that woke me up this morning, but you'd have to know the principals involved to get the full effect. I will say, though, that even in a dream it takes a long time to fill a boat-sized bathtub with water.

Boat-sized, yes. And complete with wooden decking.

Arrr.

Anyway, back to the singing. I haven't talked about it a lot on this new blog, but a regular feature of the old one was my singing problem.

Singing problem, Gracie?

The problem would be that if my spirits are anything better than completely in the toilet, I sing.

A lot.

I sing where some people mumble. Often I'll end up singing without realising I'm singing until someone points out the fact that I am, indeed, singing.





I know it's weird. And shut up, world.

It's not like my singing's horrible. I'm a trained singer, as a matter of fact. There are one or two people out there who even admit to liking my singing. I always tell them not to because it only encourages me, but it's more of a joke than anything.

I don't mind the singing so much.

I'm noticing it at the moment, though, mostly because there hasn't been much singing happening in the past while. My two fans should know that no singing usually translates as Dee has something on her mind. Something more than air pressure, even.

My two fans also should know that when I have something on my mind I almost never tell the blog what that something is. This ain't a diary, folks. If you came here looking for my deepest darkest secrets, you're probably pretty bored by now.

You're probably pretty bored anyway, but that's what you get for coming to a blog where the word pointless is right up there in the title.






Ah well, whatever. Let's leave this half-started topic with the reassertion that I've spent the morning singing along with the internet radio, and you can take any conclusion you want from that.

Or no conclusion, really. It'd be appropriate, since that's how so many of my blog posts end.

----------

Hey, t.v. club: Today is Sunday. Following Sunday would be Monday. And after Monday is where you usually find Tuesday.

Just thought I'd mention.

I'm not having anyone accusing me of not giving enough notice. No sir. What you do with the notice is entirely up to you.

It'd better have something to do with wine gums, though.

Pointless photo of the day:

I have a few too many sky photos on my nerdstick.

I have no idea why I keep taking pictures of the sky.




Because it's there, I suppose.

----------

It's chilly back in the office today, and chilly always makes me a bit cranky. Not cranky enough to turn up the heat when I'm the only one using this part of the building, but cranky nonetheless.

Chilly also makes my hands not want to operate properly, so this might be short.

Today (my second-last regular Saturday workday of the season) has been about snakes and pamphlets. Not at the same time, no. I wouldn't want to confuse anyone into thinking I was writing a pamphlet about the snakes.

Or even writing a pamphlet for the snakes. That would be silly.

I don't know if the snakes can read, for one thing.

Anyway. Today was Snake Tank Cleaning Day, and my job on Snake Tank Cleaning Day is to take the snakes out of the tank so that the girls can do the cleaning. It's not too serious a task. You just put the snakes in a plastic bin and get them out of the way for a bit.

Did I say "a" plastic bin? That was a mistake.

As was trying to put both snakes in the same bin.

Has anyone else in the room recently been peed on by a red-sided garter snake? The smell is delightful, isn't it?

So I put the snakes into TWO plastic bins and all was well. Brought them back to the office to keep an eye on them, plugged in the heat lamp for the resident office snake (did I mention that it's chilly back here? And for anyone counting, that's the third snake to appear in this post), and started working on a program pamphlet.

It's kind of weird to be typing away while being watched by a garter snake in a plastic bin, you know.

Well, no. You probably don't know. Trust me, though... it is kind of weird.





Where did my life go so horribly wrong that I find myself working on advertising while babysitting a desk full of garter snakes in plastic bins?

Speaking of animals, we still haven't bought anything for the non-snake-filled plastic bin on Wheat's desk that used to contain a very small lizard. It's not too late to get your votes in, but since I got a decidely lukewarm response the last time I asked for votes I can only assume that you're voting subliminally.

STOP THAT.

I keep trying to tell you that I don't have super powers and can't actually read your collective mind, but do you people ever listen?

I ought to sic my odoriferous garter snake on you. Yes, all two of you.

It'd serve you right.





I think I'm out of stuff now. You know, just in case you wondered.

huhwha?

So, I wasn't around yesterday.

The Toronto office knew I wasn't going to be around yesterday.

The Toronto office didn't blog yesterday.

Ya boo to the Toronto office.

There's a rumour out there that the Toronto office was playing games all night instead of blogging. Silly Toronto office. Haven't you heard of multitasking? Do both at once. I do.

And you can't tell that AT ALL from the quality of the blog posts.

----------

I wasn't around yesterday, did I mention?

I had some built-up lieu time, so I decided (PREdecided, even. I'm just that thoughtful to my coworkers) to take a day off and rest in the hope that it might convince my cold to snot its way out of my life a little bit sooner than otherwise might happen.

Now, when I say "rest" you should probably read that as "enforced rest". As in, you should not drive or operate heavy machinery while taking this medication rest.

Yeah, I spent most of the day asleep. It was great.

Incidentally, I don't think anyone would be willing to let me operate heavy equipment even if I hadn't taken the the nighttime cold medication during the day. It's sort of like the old joke where the man asks if he'll be able to play piano after the doctor fixes his hand, and when the doctor says "sure" the man replies "great! I never could play the piano before..."

Erm, 'scuse me a sec. The cooler weather must have shrunk my fingers a bit, and Grandma's rings are doing annoying little laps as I type.

For those new to the program, I wear my grandmother's topaz rings on my right hand and they're somewhat big for me. I wear them anyway, and for no real reason. I'm not especially sentimental about them and the colour's not great for my skin tone (well, the blue one's ok), but I was given them after she died and I've been wearing them ever since. Just because I do, I guess.

Anyway, back to being blissfully unaware of my surroundings.

Yesterday, that is. I can't claim to be blissfully unaware of my surroundings just at the moment, as fun as it might be to go out on the trail with the ECS kids this afternoon while slightly stoned on otc cold pills.

Hmmm.

No, no, I'm far too much of a responsible person to ever even contemplate doing something like that. Seriously contemplate, that is.

It'd make for a helluvan incident report, really.

I've so completely lost the thread here.



I suppose the long and short of things is that I'm feeling somewhat better today (knock wood, yes) and there's no doubt that I needed the rest (drug-induced or not), but taking one day off simply reminds me that September is usually the time of the year when I can take the better part of the month off and I really really really miss doing nothing right now.

Yes, I know. Cry me a river.

You could have a teeny bit of sympathy, though.






After all, I'm not well.

Arrrrr...

Actually, that's all you're getting for fake pirate speak today. I don't have the energy. Unless someone out there is desperate to have me call him a blackguard (blaggard in Pirate, I suppose). I could blackguard if I had to, I guess is what I'm saying.

I'm not shivering anyone's timbers, though.

----------

You might have gathered that yesterday wasn't an especially good day as far as the mood went. It picked up a bit as the day went on, but yesterday morning was pretty rough. There are days, folks, when I really should come with a flashing red light or something of that ilk to warn people away. You know, like a buoy. Or maybe I should just go straight for lighthouse, since at least that way I'd get my own foghorn.

It's times like those that make me grateful that Wheat understands sign language.

I should explain, shouldn't I?

Well, I'd gone in very (VERY) early to set up my morning's program, mostly as an escape from people. Don't get me wrong: I like the people I work with, but I just really wasn't in the mood to be anywhere near people first thing yesterday morning and so I went out of my way to put myself in the corner, metaphorically speaking.

I have a little bit of a temper, you see. The nice thing about knowing you have a temper, though, is that if you're smart about things you can remove yourself from a situation before it actually becomes a situation. Or at least before it becomes a worse situation.

Wheat, having got in a bit later in the morning, couldn't have known that I was secretly wearing the big FUCK OFF sign internally. Wearing it, in fact, to the point where opening my mouth to talk to anyone would have resulted in either someone getting yelled at (by me) or someone in tears (me again).

Gotta love those moments. I was the very definition of snot-in-a-knot. And for no reason, really. I just was.

Anyway, Wheat came in all Wheat-like to ask if I wanted any help and... all I did was motion him back out of the door. Oh, I believe I may have also said "no" if you were listening carefully, but mostly he got the grand Go Away.

So he did.

We have a pretty good working relationship, the two of us.

Some people (i.e. my former supervisor) would have taken it upon themselves to decide I needed to have a talk or get some things off my chest or (god forbid) put up with a moment of friendly concern for my well-being. Wheat knows that sometimes I just need to be left alone.

Wheat also knows that I'm capable of throwing things.





I throw like a girl, true, but even a girlie throw occasionally hits its mark.

In the end, I got things out of my system more or less and then came back to the office when I was ready to play nice. The end. No moral.

----------

The end of the story, not the end of the post. I was just wondering if anyone thinks I should start slapping the t.v. club around NOW just to be sure that they're all ready for next week. Next week, yes. Just like Christmas, the new season does come around eventually. It doesn't help that they're starting nearly a month later than last year, of course, but somehow things just seemed to get sooo draaaggy this time around.

By the way... who's bringing the wine gums?

Ah well. I've given you enough notice. You can decide it amongst yourselves.

Oh, and:

Pointless photo of the day:

That's all for today (I lied; see above). I'm sick. And tired (two hour program this morning). And whiney.

I'm allowed.

It's my blog, after all.

Go away.

It was raining at 3 am, you know

The fact that I know that should excuse me from making a real post, I figure.

Really, the only reason there are words beside today's pointless photo is that there may be one person in the universe who wants to know what I thought of the Emmys since I made mention of them yesterday.

They were boring.

Inexcusable, really. Long is understandable, but merely boring should be avoidable.

There were a lot of ables in that last sentence, weren't there?

The only thing I found of vague interest at all was Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert giving the statue to Steve Carell since Ricky Gervais wasn't there to accept it. I've wanted to see someone do that for a long time.

As far as the fashion thing went, I didn't see anything of real interest. I'll say again that there needs to be a lot more bow tie wearing, boys. Otherwise you may just as well wear a plain black suit. And why exactly was Alec Baldwin dressed like a slightly bloated waiter?

On the female side, I suppose things were mostly ok. Hayden Panettiere seemed to be doing some kind of tribute to flesh-coloured pumpkins (or maybe she was smuggling in small children), Edie Falco looked like she'd been paintballed, and Elaine Stritch -- whom I love, really -- well, there just comes a time in life when hems should be below the knee, I think. Leslie Caron seemed to be headed to the Crusades after the show or something like that, but when you're Leslie Caron I guess you can get away with it.

One other thing. Feathers. Why do women ever think it's a good idea to wear feathers?

That's all I've got at the moment. Assuming I stay awake I'll be watching the silly entertainment shows tonight so I can laugh at them gushing over mostly pedestrian outfits, but that's the only plan for today.

Besides getting groceries, that is. I didn't bother last week, and the cupboard is decidedly bare.

So's the brain. I'm tired of this cold, already. I'm sure you are too... or at least tired of mentions of this cold.




Later, all.

... And you chose to wear that?

She did, you know. No one forced her to get so dirty. I'll admit that it's a bit of an old picture, though. She's not currently modelling the patio's collection of ready-to-wear, thank goodness.

This ought to be short again today, by the way. Did I mention the part about having a head cold?

Just checking.

Oh, and before I get into the meat of what's more likely to turn out to be a disguised vegetarian platter, can I sympathise with anyone who's been in PostSecret withdrawal this morning? Bad Blogger Spambot. Bad. Go sit in the corner.

----------

And now on to the reason for the post's title. No, really. It wasn't actually to do with the cat.

Tonight, as every television geek (or the North American ones, at least) knows, is the Emmy Awards. I'll be watching the Emmys even though I watch a total of two series, one of which isn't nominated for a damned thing as far as I know.

What can I say? I spend more of my time watching educational -- hang on, I should put that in quotes -- "educational" programming and late night talk shows, which I record and watch in the morning juuust to screw up their demographics.

I'll be watching the Emmys. For as much of it as I can manage to keep myself awake, I'll be watching (did I mention the head cold?). Couldn't give a rat's ass who wins, for the most part, but I'll be watching.

And why?



You did ask, right?

Because of the clothes, of course.

The Emmys offer two of my favourite things in the entertainment world: nice looking men in evening dress (for those new to the program, I have a bit of a... thing for men in well-tailored suits. Tuxes = (or should = ) the best of good tailoring), and women kitted out very badly in the most expensive way possible.

I mean, seriously. Most of these women are offered unimaginable freebies from tip to toe, and yet some of them still manage to look like they visited the car wash on the way to the event but forgot to bring the car along?

I love that.

I also love listening to the so-called fashion experts the next day as they trash talk the whole thing. It makes me especially happy when one expert's Best Dressed ends up on the next's What-The-Hell-Was-She-Thinking list. It's such a perfect example of how ridiculous the whole thing is that it can't help but warm the cockles of my cynical little heart.

Yeah, I'm a little weird that way. Let me have my fun.

This year, since our local CH station was one of the ones that became a mutant incarnation of E! a couple of weeks ago, we get treated to the entire day-long (oops. My mistake. It's only five hours or so) red carpet coverage for the first time in these parts. Yay? I'll tune in out of curiosity, I suppose, but honestly I'm at a loss as to how they manage to fill all of that time. I probably don't want to know, do I?

Ah well, at least there'll be good-looking men in nice suits.

And boys, there had better be a few more bow ties in evidence tonight than there were for the Golden Globes this year. A tux with a regular tie is nothing but a cheat.

Incidentally, I much prefer the Golden Globes over pretty much every other award show since the lack of host and open bar make things sooo much more entertaining. For fashion oddities, however, I'm not sure the GGs come out the winner over the Emmys or the Oscars. I'm not counting any of the music awards shows, you'll notice. There's a different between aiming to be strange looking and achieving it by accident.

Anyway, that's it for me today. The brain lasted longer than I thought it would, but now I need to grab some lunch and marry myself to the couch for a while. Gee, I love being sick. Could you tell?

Pointless photo of the day:

It's not yellow.

Well, maybe a tiny bit here and there, but I don't think anyone could say that the overwhelming theme was in any way yellow.

That's all for today. In the game of Cold vs Head, Cold is winning at the moment. Yay for it, I suppose, but I could wish that I wasn't the battleground.

Yellow

But first...

Blogger has a new toy that lets you look at the photos Blogger users are uploading. I guess the toy isn't new in that they've had it in-office, but this is the first it's come out to play. Might be interesting, so have a look. I've added the link to the sidebar as well.

----------

Now, yellow. Somebody apparently has a problem with yellow. What she seems to have forgotten is that I'm not that fond of it either. Yellow walls have a pretty big urgh factor for me. I don't wear yellow well (I'm a winter, if anyone's into the whole draping thing), nor do I especially want to. Yellow's pretty much my last choice for anything having to do with colour.

Yellow flowers, though, are allowed to be yellow.

Yes, you heard it here first.

I mentioned this on the old blog ages ago but if I haven't already deleted that post I will soon, so I'm going to repeat it. I live in an area that has a lot of canola fields, and one of the best sights you'll ever see in the summer is the blue Alberta sky contrasting with the canola fields in full flower.

Yellow flowers.

Google Image it if you don't believe me.

I think if she saw it in person even the Toronto office would be able to live with that sort of yellow.




That's it for today. I've been in a conference of sorts for the last day and a half, I feel pretty much like hell what with the sinus headaches and the not being able to breathe, and I have to do the weekend memo before I can leave.

And dammit, you'd all better be feeling sorry for me or I just won't bother coming back.




So there.

I spy with my little eye ....

.... nothing that is yellow. Sometimes a person just has to make their own happiness and well yes, okay, blog when the other blogger is busy.
Erm, see yesterday's comment re colour preference

The gazebo is in the place I spent last weekend. It's still a town I do believe, hence a town square with said gazebo. A town square! Hey I'm from Toronto. It's a big deal.


In the background are tables set up with the wares being offered; jams, pies, fresh veggies (because who would buy soggy ones I suppose) and craft-type things. I have every right to be proud of the fact I spent not a nickel. There.

The wine was pretty tasty at the Inn however. That may be the only time I pay that much for Atlantic salmon, too. A boat trip and photo souvenir should have been included in the price of that dinner.

I digress. I managed to get through two days away from home without a total melt-down. You could probably refer to the comment regarding the wine, on that score. The bride was lovely; the groom handsome and nary a negative thing occurred. Except the cupcake fight on the part of the bridesmaids who had a love of tequila. Actually that wasn't even negative; the video shows them having a blast.

All in all, a wedding like so many others ~ but for the fact I was there, having a very pleasant time indeed.

No, I won't get all emotive. You just know that's not how things come out of these fingers.

Pointless photo of the day:

I think that's it. I so have nothing. Besides, I'm currently being a bit boggled by the logic behind the horse-powered car. I don't have enough brain to be boggled and come up with a blog post.

Go back to yesterday's post and tell us what animal to buy, already. You people shouldn't expect us to make our own decisions.

Office pets

But first...

Consider today's pointless photo a vision test. Click on it to make it bigger if you need to, but then come back here.

Ready?

What did you see when you looked at it? Did you see the marigold, or did you notice the fly in the marigold? Or -- and this is to see who's really paying attention -- did you notice that the fly in the marigold is likely to have a very short life if the goldenrod spider waiting for it in the marigold has its way?

That's a lot going on in one flower, you know.

----------

We're short one office pet now, apparently. Wheat informs me that the very small lizard bit the big one the other day. Ah well. It was, after all, a very small lizard.

Now, though, we have space for another office pet. You see, Wheat had bought the lizard a proper home (complete with heater, even) and it seems a shame to have a proper home sitting empty so we figure we may as well get something else.

Something that would be happy in a lizard-y home, I guess.

Also, something that it's not a pain in the ass for me to feed.

And yes, I know that I don't often use the word ass on the blog, as much as I'm very comfortable using it in real life. I wasn't in the mood to come up with a different phrase today, so you get what you get. Not feeling well, remember?

We're sort of leaning towards a gecko at the moment. No, not because we need insurance. Just because geckos are, on the whole, pretty cool.

I'm sure we'd both be happy with a corn snake too, but the cost gets up there a bit.

I suppose what I'm saying here is that we're looking for an office pet on the cheap. It's not often that the two of us decide to actually put our own money into the office wildlife, so I'm not sure exactly how much we're collectively willing to invest.

If money were no object I'd vote for a tortoise, personally.

And your vote? Well, that's why I bring this up. Use the comment link. Tell me what new thing you'd like to see joining the office menagerie, but keep in mind that whatever it is will have to like a small plastic home with a built-in (ok, taped-on) heater.

In other words, make up my mind for me. It's not like I have a working one at the moment anyway.




And just be thankful that I haven't shared with you the fun of having my otc cold med wear off ALREADY. It's going to be a long afternoon, I can tell you.

Pointless thought of the day and assorted random blathering

I really am a pretty big fan of nighttime cold medication.

And that, boys and girls, should excuse anything else that comes out on the blog today.

Just saying.

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I have nothing in mind (mind? I have no mind) for the daily blather, so for a change let's talk about the pointless photo.

I like this photo. I took it yesterday, along with about thirty others which I promptly deleted. This particular shot survived the purge, though, and no wonder. Lilies are always good subjects.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of lilies. Good, strong lines that you don't have to mess with too much in either photography or doodling. I have so many lily sketches. They're fun to play with, you see. The flower itself isn't fussy, so you have lots of scope to fool around with tones and shading to get your effect.

Any of my two fans who have paying the least bit of attention over the years shouldn't be surprised at a photo of the back side of a lily. I do things like that fairly frequently. It's not so much aiming at being artsy (well, sometimes it is) as it is looking at things from a different angle. It's the whole shape/pattern thing again. When you get a glimpse of something in a slightly unusual way you start to notice things about its construction and form that might have escaped you before. Or you should. I do.

Besides, the backlighting was just cool.





I've got a whole big bunch of nothing today, as you can tell. I should probably stop typing, then.

Yep.

The picture is neat though. Isn't it?





Going, yes.

Malfunctioning equipment

The apple, if anyone wondered, is not malfunctioning. I am.

The pointless photo might end up to be all for today, you know. I'm having a bit of trouble making my brain work.

Not feeling all that great, did I mention?

Actually, at the moment it's more like I'm not feeling all that here. Pretty serious disconnect somewhere in the system. Not all sensors are operational, I suppose.

Speaking of disconnects, a few of you know about the trouble I was having with my stove. For the rest of you: the other night the timer buzzer on the stove came on for no reason, and after a while of fiddling with it in vain I finally had to unscrew the fuse to get it to shut up. The problem with unscrewing the fuse was that it also disabled the electrical outlet on the stove (and the clock, but the gearing on the clock-set is buggered so I wasn't using it anyway). The problem with disabling the electrical outlet on the stove is that it's the only place in the entire apartment that I can plug in my microwave without tripping a breaker.

Gotta love older buildings sometimes.

Anyway, I finally got around to leaving a note with the manager on Friday. I didn't do it sooner partly because I've been having a bad week for headaches (you might have heard) and partly because the speed of the repair service we seem to get leaves more than a little to be desired, as a rule. Let's just say that things move at a fairly (and frustratingly) slow pace. They don't hurry, so I guess I wasn't in a hurry to get them to not hurry.

It made sense in my brain. But then, my brain's not exactly firing properly. I believe that I've already told you about that.

Imagine my surprise when the manager called my cell to let me know that the repairman would be there that same afternoon.

Shock and amazement. Seriously.

When I got back to the place after work, I was curious as to what had been done. The fuse was screwed in, definitely, and there was no buzzer sounding, so that was good. I plugged the microwave back in, and that was also good. Power to the outlet: check.

What wasn't working was anything to do with the clock and timer. I couldn't set the clock before, but at least it ran. Now? No clock, no timer, no buzzer. Apparently the fix was to completely disconnect the thing.

Interesting logic there. "She's complaining that her outlet doesn't work. It must mean she doesn't care about the rest of it."

Well.

Honestly?

Ok, I have to admit that I don't, really. I tend to use another timer when I'm baking, and since I haven't been able to set the clock for a while I pretty much ignore it. The thing is, though, that they didn't know that. I think it's fair to say that this was a pretty half-assed repair job.

But my outlet works, so...






Somewhere along the line this almost turned into an actual post. Yay me. I'm done now, I think, so you can go look for something else to do if you like.

Hey, I forgot to blog

Ok, I'll do it now, then.

Not that there's a helluva lot to say, mind. I think I'm finally getting my father's cold (it had to happen eventually. The only wonder is that it's a week later than I'd estimated it would be), and at the moment I'm at the stage of slightly headache-y and not feeling quite right but still (mostly) functional. Give it a day, though, and I'll no doubt be in full-on whinge.

The other reason I have very little to say is that I've just spent far too much time looking at the Social Studies curriculum while trying to figure out what to do with the Grade Fours.

Oh, and just as a side note to any of my American readers who've wondered why I continually refer to Grade Fours and the like rather than Fourth Graders... well, I'm Canadian. That's the way we do it here. You're just lucky I haven't taken to talking about Forms instead. That's not the way we do it here, but it would be entertainingly confusing to refer to them anyway. Entertaining to me, at least. Probably not to anyone else, but as I've said far too many times before: my house, my rules.

And as a side note to pretty much everybody, my typing skills are apparently already on the weekend break today. If you notice mistakes, I really don't give a flying rat's bum.

If you're wondering why the Grade Fours need something done with them, then you're probably more interested in my job than you should be.






My head hurts, did I mention?

I'd like to be home watching DVDs and eating Alphagetti and wieners right now, actually. Yes, that's right. Alphagetti and wieners. With parmesan on the top.

Don't you judge me.





Ok, the fact is that Alphagetti-and-wieners falls under the category of comfort food for me. When I was a kid we only lived a few blocks away from the school, so we used to walk home for lunch quite frequently. It was a different time then, she says in her best old lady voice. We had a lot of canned lunches. Prem (think Spam. I like Prem better, though). Cream of Whatever soup. My personal favourite was Alphagetti and wieners. You had to have the wieners, you know. It wasn't nearly as much fun without the wieners.

The parmesan addition came when I was in university and becoming more... sophisticated in my tastes. That "sophisticated" really doesn't sound right when talking about canned pasta, but I guess we'll go with it.

By the way, I'm currently very wet because I took a momentary break from blogging about nothing to run out in the rain and rescue some leftover perennials from the plant exchange for my father. I have no idea if it's anything he might want, but they were just going to throw them out otherwise.

Where was I?

Oh yeah. My day's allotment of sodium in a can.

To this day, if I'm feeling under the weather and need a bit of self-mothering, I'll crave Alphagetti and wieners with parmesan. Either that or split pea and ham soup. Courtesy of Campbells on that one, I'll admit. I'm not usually enough of a soup person to bother making my own, as easy as I know you're going to tell me it would be.

Besides, I don't know about you but the absolute first thing I want to do when I'm sick (and whiney) is to get up and make soup from scratch.

What does Scratch Soup taste like, anyway? Itchy, I suppose.

So, yeah. Expect whine whine whine in the next few days if I am coming down with a cold, because everybody knows that I'm the only person who's ever been at all sick in the world and I'll have to tell everyone about it.

Loudly and obnoxiously.

And repetitively.





Some things don't change, even if it is on a different blog.

Pointless photo and that's all you're getting of the day:

That's it. Really. It was noodle day, you see.

Mmm. Noodles.

Stuff on a desk

The pointless photo, of course, is not of stuff on a desk. If it was, it wouldn't be pointless.

It's a picture of something that used to be on my desk until yesterday, though.

As was mentioned previously, I have a skinny new shelf beside my desk. Because of this, I've been able to reorganise some of the mess.

Actually, let me rephrase that. My desk is hardly ever truly a mess, because I get the twitches if it is. Just ask Wheat. No, my desk qualified as cluttered, not messy. Too many things taking up too much space.

Well, now that the binders and dead animals (and solar motion demonstrator) have been relocated, I can tell you that I still have some weird things on my desk. Thirty-seven reference books, for one (or thirty-seven) thing(s). That part's weird because the only books I left on the desk were ones that I personally own. Someday I might have to find room for thirty-seven more books in my small apartment.

That sounds a bit of a problem. I guess I'll worry about that when the time comes.

Some of the other highlights of my desk include a small elephant (courtesy of the incredible travelling Wheat), the infamous blue therapy putty (infamous to anyone who remembers the photo series from the old blog. And don't bother looking. They're all gone now), a magnetic floating pen, a stromatolite, a giggle stick, part of a sheet of mosaic tile, a large dayglow spider puzzle, assorted sketches, a bottle of cheap prostitute-red nail polish... and we can't forget the monitor lizard.

There are other things, too. Some of them are even work-related.

Come to think of it, a surprising amount of it is work-related.

A while back (before the recent remodelling) I took a series of photos of the things on my desk. I'm thinking it might be time to do it again. I could lie and pretend that it would give some insight into the life of a (*cough*) professional interpreter, but really it would just be something to fill space with until I find something interesting to write about again.

I haven't been doing so well with that lately. I'm not sure if you noticed?

Anyway, back to work. We're playing in the planetarium this afternoon if all goes well, so that ought to pretty much guarantee the formation of headache v.1354.7.

That number, by the way, is just a random estimate. I imagine it should be a bit higher, but to think about things like that is more than a little depressing.

Go back and examine the solar thingy in the picture if you need more entertainment. Maybe someday I'll explain what it's supposed to be doing.

Nothing

As in: I've got.

Nothing.

I've been busy, you see.

I've also not really been thinking of blog-type things. It's not been a priority, I guess.

So...

We could talk about shelving, I suppose. I bought a shelf for the office the other day. That's a big thing.

My desk, you see, has been (for years) the repository for a lot of garbage I wished wasn't there. Programming-related items I inherited from the person who had the desk before. Binders full of school curriculum information, general resources, youth programs... that kind of thing. It was fine when I was only using the desk casually, but it unfortunately didn't move when the desk became more-or-less mine.

Binders aren't all that self-motivated, unfortunately.

It'd be more entertaining if they were.

Anyway, I'd been wanting a shelf to keep some of that stuff off of the desk (leaving room for my own resource material, which was sort of wedged in precariously) for a while, but the problem was that space in this office is somewhat at a premium. I had a tiny little space (where my filing cabinet that I NEVER GOT BACK used to live), but because there's another cabinet jutting out into the doorway now I wouldn't have been able to fit something filing-cabinet size in there anymore.

Stalemate. What do you do when you need the world's narrowest bookshelf but aren't exactly the carpentry type?

Well, you end up looking at modular closet organisers until you find the one, narrow, two-adjustable-shelf model in existence that might actually work.

I built it this morning. While we were having a meeting, actually.

It's now proudly holding a whack o' binders that are no longer on my desk.

Oh, and some dead animals as well.






My job is weird, remember?

Pointless photo of the day:

That'll have to be it for today. Late lunch, and now I'm busy with other things.

Bye then.

Oops

Yeah, it's the same Black Meadowhawk as yesterday. Full side view this time, because it was bugging me that I didn't post this shot when I meant to before. It's a better one for those of you who want to practice your dragonfly identification.

All none of you, yes.

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The other oops is that I've officially wasted too much time doing other things this morning (including deleting a few more posts from the old blog. One of these days I'll tell you what I'm going to use that space for, but not now), so I don't really have time to blog.

Too bad, too. I had something to say for a change, and I'd be willing to be that by tomorrow I'll forget what it was.

I'll give you this to tide you over, though: If you want to guarantee that I won't bother to read what you've written in an e-mail or posted on a blog, use all small-case letters. Shift keys are easy, boys and girls, and refusing to use the shift key is not so much a statement as a bout of laziness. If you're too lazy to use the shift key, then I'm too lazy to care about what you have to say. I'd almost sooner read something written in all capitals than see things in all smalls.

It's akin to not using your signal light in the car, as far as I'm concerned. And, as anyone who's every driven with me can attest, not using a signal light is the quickest way to get me to call you a moron. Or worse, depending on the mood.

So there you go. All small-case = moron. Says she who signs in as deeol...




[/pot-kettle]

Pointless thought of the day:

One of the problems with being a right-handed mouser when you're actually left-handed is that it's hard on watch straps.

Like a lot of lefties, I wear my watch on the right wrist. This is usually more convenient than wearing it on the left wrist. It's also easier on the watch, since when you wear your watch on your dominant hand it tends to take quite a beating. Don't believe me? Try it and see.

Erm... buy a cheap watch first and use that, though. It's not the kind of demo you want to attempt with a watch you actually care about.

However, when I made the decision years ago to always use a computer mouse with my right hand (it made sense, since almost every desk in the office world is set up that way) I didn't realise that I was condemning myself to a life of ratty watch straps and shredded mouse pads. It's kind of a bother.

Take the watch off before you sit down at the computer, you say?




Oh, shut up.

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Today's pointless dragonfly photo (a dragonfly? How novel. We never get those here) is a little bit different. Rather than the Cherry-faced Meadowhawks and Variable Darners that have been showing up in far too many blog photos lately, this one features a Black Meadowhawk female.

I know. Nobody cares.

But hey -- that's three more dragonfly species than I could identify at this time last year. Yay me.

I should have posted the other picture of this particular dragonfly that's on my nerdstick. It's a bit clearer. I uploaded this one instead though, and since I'm nothing if not lazy we're all stuck with it now.





That's all you're getting from me today, by the way. In keeping with the grand tradition of my long weekends always sucking, I'm on day two of a rather annoying headache.

Nobody cares about that either, but since it's my blog you get to hear about it anyway.

Lucky you.

Pointless photo of the day:

That'll be it for today.

I have a headache. Oh, and the proper mood to go with a headache.

Go away now.