I Need A Walkman and a Drink

When my coworker attempts to think, you can hear the sticks of wood rubbing together and smell the smoke.

This is what I hear every day, several times a day.

(beeps of new mail in Dumb Coworker's Inbox)

Click-click...Shuffle. (assorted mouse noises)

Dumb Coworker: Sigh

Pause.

I can feel myself tense up, because I already know she's going to ask a question.

DC: Mumble...I just don't see...mumble, mumble

Pause.

DC: Mumble...How can it...mumble...this way...?

Pause.

Clickety-click-shift. More mouse noises. I hear her sigh again.

DC: Exhales loudly.

DC: Inhales loudly.

Here it comes.

DC: "Marina...? How do I...(asinine question follows)

Eesh. The worst part, the absolutely worst part.

She'll start to argue and whine if she doesn't like the answer to the question. For fuck's sake, if you know all there is to know already, why are you asking?

And, that whiny voice. I won't be held responsible for my actions if that voice doesn't stop.

Have I mentioned that my work has sent at least two people round the bend? It has. There are stories of at least two former employees simply losing it in my office. One was threatened with the police before she left. The other simply was reduced to blubbering idiocy.

When I first started work there, I found these stories amusing, in a twisted sort of way. Because I'm not a very nice person and will chuckle over the wacky misfortunes of others.

Now I feel like I'm looking into the dark maw of my future. There will come a day when I'm reduced to blubbering idiocy or they have to send for the police to remove me. Or perhaps I'll be like at least two other employees, people that just left with bad feelings all around. Something to look forward to. I'll be sure to keep you informed.

Listen to me kiddies. When a significant number of your former coworkers have left under troubling circumstances, tears were shed and voices raised? It's a bad sign. A Very Bad Sign.

I was just so grateful to have a job I was too dumb to know it.

Brothels recruit specialists for English visitors

Australian brothels are recruiting extra S&M specialists during the Rugby World Cup to cater for the needs of posh English fans...

...Robbie Swan, a spokesman for The Eros Association, Australia's adult entertainment industry, told the BBC: "The upper classes in England, we know that they like spanking."

What Child of The Eighties Are You?

You are a Cartoon Addict. You probably spent many
Saturday mornings in front of the TV. You long
for the days when cartoons rocked. Never fear,
the Cartoon Network still plays reruns of The
Snorks!

What child of the 80's are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Pretty accurate!

Completely unrelated

I was looking up some arty stuff the other night and found this amazing dollmaker named Alexandra Koukinova. I don't want to actually own any of her dolls, a doll costing several thousand dollars is all wrong for the way I live. But I love the craftmanship and the fantastic attention to detail. There's been houses, no, make that cities built with less thought put into them than these dolls.

Fetopia

I love it. These folks are your online source for little fetuses lovingly made out of polymer clay. They offer fetus soaps, fetus beads and fetus candles.

Isn't the web great?

I'm not the Yankee I was.

Unlike many other people in Massachusetts, I no longer mimic Southern accents as a source of humor. Living in the mid-Atlantic for several years, I now know that we sound funny too.

Right when we first moved down, I happened to listen to an episode of Car Talk. It was the first time I ever realized that Click and Clack had an accent. Light Dawns on Marblehead indeed.

Oh yeah, I have comments now. :)

I've been registered for Haloscan for ages, but kept having trouble with the code. I think it was me though, not them. The other night I had some time so I decided to experiment and it took me minutes to get set up.

Speaking of technical problems, here's the site that the Monadnock trip pictures are at:

http://www.geocities.com/listentotheocean/

That's the index page, and you'll see a link which should take you right to the pictures. I'm hoping that cutting and pasting the link will work for anyone having trouble with the live link.

The GLBT Years Book

The Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender Years Book is an on-line gallery of the middle and high school year book pictures, organized by graduation year, of gay, lesbian, bisexual & transgender adults from across the U.S. and Canada. Its purpose is to show GLBT youth that they're not alone.

Adding a photo to the Years Book is free, anonymous, and open to anyone from any country that engages in the ritual of the school photo. Pictures are limited to those taken during adolescence (ages 12-19), and presented on the site in order of graduation year. The photos are shown anonymously to demonstrate that GLBT teens might be any teen. We invite you to include your occupation in order to remind GLBT teens that we really "are everywhere," and that they, too, can become anything.

Hey, I'm still around!

Work has been hell, absolute hell. But the temps have stabilized and the pitchforks worn down.

I posted some pictures from our Mount Monadnock trip here. Enjoy.

Settle down Beavis!

You remember Beavis and Butthead? If you're too young to remember them, don't tell me. Just smile and nod while your elders babble.

At work, we have an outside contractor who has been working on this one project for us for far too long. He's clearly dying to be done with it. I'm dying for him to be done with it. We talk to each other almost every day on the phone, and interact like long-divorced people. We notice when each other is sick, wish each other well when we go off on vacations, and seriously get on each others' nerves.

I think we're both dreaming of the glorious day when we no longer have to talk to each other.

Remember how Butthead was the comparatively calm member of the pair, and Beavis used to freak out? I encountered a new issue today. We're not supposed to encounter any new issues at this point. In talking to him over the phone, I could tell it was all too much. I could hear his voice flutter and gasp, and then I could hear throaty proto-shrieky spazzy Beavis noises.

Tech people must want to do this an awful lot.