wireless and digital

I am posting this from my living room on my new laptop with wireless capabilities while watching Oprah, which I recorded on TiVo earlier. Envy me, but don't hate me.

Things Certain People Should Not Do

If you are corpulent man, you should not be showing a wide equator of pale skin in the gap between your too small sweatshirt and your mismatched sweatpants, thus searing the corneas of innocent commuters who see you in the crosswalk.

If you are pushing a stroller, you should not be walking side-by-side with your friend who is also pushing a stroller, thus blocking the entire path for childless people in a hurry.

If you are pregnant, you should not wear a short shirt with your panel pants showing at least four inches of that soft blue scoop holding in your fetus. However, one can only guess that the innocent commuters who spied you in the crosswalk were grateful not to be seeing yet another stretch of big, round belly on their way home from work and thus thank you for making sure that your garments overlapped.

Shopping

Speaking of Target... It never makes me happy that I run out of health & beauty products all at the same time. This week I am limping along with dwindling (or no) supplies of lotion, facial lotion, shampoo, toothpaste (that one I'm having to break down & buy tonight since I have NONE left), these facial cleaning clothes I use for after the gym. I can't afford to buy new products until after payday - Friday. It has just dawned on me that this means I am going to have to field trip to palatial Target over the weekend... MEMORIAL DAY weekend. :(

Ghetto Target

There are three different types of Target. The first Target is the comfortable Target of my childhood home. It is bigger than K-Mart, nicer than Wal-Mart and makes me happy just to be there. I can wander the aisles for hours and rarely leave with purchases totaling under $50.

Then there is the Target of my dreams. I first heard of this Target from Joanne. It is elephantine and marvelous. Two stories of splendiferous shopping adventures to be had. Jealousy made me say spiteful things about Seattle, the town that was home to this Holy Grail of retail centers. Several months later I encountered the fraternal twin of this target in Mission Hills in San Diego. I could see it from my hotel room at the conference I was attending for work. The concentric circles of the sign beckoning to me, pulling me toward the ample available parking. I found everything I needed there; so much underwear available in my size that I decided right then and there to replace my entire stock. I spent nearly $200 that day.

In the recent explorations of my new home town I have found what may be the best Target of them all. I hesitate to say for certain that it is The Best and you will soon see why. This Target has two stories like its brethen. It has wide, clean aisles. It has upscale signage and modern accoutrements not seen in sub-standard Targets. And. Get ready for it. This Target has its own parking garage. Four levels of parking spots filled with Jaguars and Audis, Range Rovers and Hummers. I vowed upon entering the hallowed grounds never to darken the door of any other Target but this one.

It always comes back to this, though, doesn’t it? Target failed me when I needed it most. The only two-door Simply Elegant bathroom cabinet in stock was in a box that had been half consumed by langoliers. I was forced to look for the cabinet elsewhere. I was forced to look for it at Ghetto Target.

The third type of Target I have encountered is much like Wal-Mart only smaller and more expensive. The cramped, soiled aisles were littered with suicidal merchandise, familial detritus and what may have been fecal matter. The parking lot is small and oddly arranged so that no matter where you park you are far from the entrance. The drainage is poor and results in craters of water to be traversed, the depths of which are deceiving and can swallow a small child whole.

I schlepped over to the Ghetto Target, a deceiving two miles away from Targetopia, in search of the two-door Simply Elegant bathroom cabinet. Holding my breath, I located the Home Improvement area lightning fast. I grabbed a one-door Simply Elegant bathroom cabinet (of course they had no two-doors) and headed for the check-out. After paying for my single item, a Target worker, or simply a hoodlum in a red shirt, asked me if I needed help out to my car. I averted my eyes, shook my head and got the hell out of there.

Wet outside

OMG! I may just be crabby but we live in SEATTLE people... there doesn't need to be massive discussions about how wet it is outside and golly it sure is wet outside and on and on and on! It rains here! Get over it.

Quickie

Two quick items. Don't worry, Ghetto Target and Things Certain People Shouldn't Do are coming later today.

1- My new work email will no longer bounce back external emails, so start sending me some.

2- I had a celebrity sighting this morning. I saw Tommy Lee Jones being driven around in a black Mercedes by a chauffer/bodyguard and being handed a cell phone by the aforementioned double duty employee. "Please hold for Mr. Jones." We were stopped in traffic, going opposite directions on Sepulveda, so close that the panhandler walking the aisle could have touched both of our cars at the same time.

I'm Back!

And at my new job. Old habits die hard. I cannot resist the power of the blog.

I have much to pass on to you. Look for the following posts soon. Tonight? Perhaps. I have broadband access at home now.

Coming Soon:
-TiVo, My Love
-Ghetto Target
-Adventures in Cruising
-New House, New Job, New Dog
-Things Certain People Shouldn't Do

Webpage mania

I hate it when I click on a webpage that (at least to me was unknowingly) is linked to porn and it causes a million porn popups. I hate it worse when it happens at my CATHOLIC employer. I also hate it since I was on a Christian Music webpage when it happened. (don't ask sometimes it is better when you don't know... :)

Biggest peeve ever!

OK so while I admit that if you read through this blog and look at all my posts I probably come across as a total freak. (Of course looking at my blog will confirm that) but really, seriously, I'm mostly laid back about things. I just think furious thoughts but don't act on them, or even really speak them out loud. BUT my biggest peeve ever... the one that actually makes me want to hit someone hard would be the one I experienced multiple times today and yesterday. When you are walking... in a public/crowded area... Don't fucking stop in the MIDDLE of the walkway. You cause the rest of us to stop in one of those 7 dwarves moments one right into another like a pileup on the freeway. Today I went to the new library. There was a line to get in. This is not a huge deal to me, I expected it since it was the big grand opening fete. So as we are walking toward the doors... there is a group of people standing in the way talking so that I had to walk around them. Then we walk into the library and for some random reason people stopped dead in their tracks to look around. This isn't the fucking Sistene Chapel (I'm sure I've just misspelled that). Move yourself to the right or the left to gawk or keep walking. KEEP WALKING! I don't think this is too hard to do. (Random funny note... blogger's spell check does not recognize blog or fuck, but I liked the irony of it not recognizing blog... is that irony?)

People Suck

Co-worker is "too busy" to do something that literally only takes 3 minutes to do. He walked over to my desk from his office (approximately 2 minutes), asked me if I knew how to do this stupid little task (of course I do, I'm not an idiot), spent 5 minutes explaining why he was too busy to figure out how to do it himself (funny, he was in the same training class as me), watched me do it and then walked back to his office (probably to go call his girlfriend who he claims isn't his girlfriend anymore but really she is). God. And, he makes almost $40,000 a year MORE than me. Why is life so wretched sometimes?

We're expecting you... on the Love Boat!

In fourteen hours I will be boarding the Ecstasy - the Carnival cruise ship headed for Ensenada, not the club drug. This cruise is doing double duty as a writers' conference for the sole purpose, I believe, of allowing me to write off the cruise from my taxes. In addition to the morning conference activities, my itinerary consists of tanning, reading, napping and drinking, not listed in order of importance. The only souvenirs I will be bringing back are the souvenir tiki god or coconut cups in which my pina coladas and margaritas will be served.

Have a good week, mis amigos. See? Practicing my Spanish already. All I really need, though, is, "Una pina colada, por favor," and "Donde esta el bano?" Did I mention that my new house is in the perfect location for brushing up on my Spanish? Every time I stop at a light there are numerous billboads awaiting translation. The one I saw tonight read, "Solo hay una. !Disfrutala!" It was an ad for Horchata.

Bathtub

Wow, Michelley... now with titles! :)

I hate my bathtub. My legs were stiff and sore from volunteering today so I decided to take a warm bath to help loosen up the muscles. Here are the things I hate about my bathtub...

1 - It is too short. I'm not outrageously tall or anything, but it is just too short.

2 - I hate that circle thing (usually where you flip the little lever to make the drain stop draining). In most standard tubs, it seems to have drain holes. Presumably so that I can't overfill it ala most standard family comedies. These drain holes really only manage to drain at a minimum 1/2 my water so I either have to waste water by adding more water or sit there half cold.

I'm an accent whore... I know he is a kid, but the kid who plays the captain of the Quidditch team on the Harry Potter movie has the best accent. Where can I find a nice 30something with an awesome accent like that??!!

TIMMY!

Check out the new Fountain of Pee link on the right. Timmy thinks his life is better than yours.

Moving On

The number of peeves that revolve around moving from one house to another are too numerous to list here so I will just hit the highlights.
1- The movers marked up every single wall in the house.
2- I won't have broadband internet until 5/22. The husband swears that this was the earliest they could come that worked with our schedule. Until then, I have dial-up access in the evening when he comes home with his laptop.
3- Dial-up access is so slow that I can't publish my entire blog, so this post is probably still on the old template, if it even makes it to the web.
4- The unpacking seems to be endless.
5- I believe there are 17 Mexicans living in the house next to mine. Each of them has a car. (Don't even get on me about being racist; I am part Mexican.)
6- Mostly I am peeved about the internet thing. I miss being able to check my email 157 times a day. I miss checking all my regular blogs and sites hourly for new content. I miss chatting with my friends. No, I never did do any work at that old job of mine. I guess I better get used to not being able to do these things since I am guessing I will have to be a model employee at the new job.
7- We don't have TV yet, either. On the plus side, once we do get it, we will be getting Direct TV and TiVO. Yay!
8- I hope this post makes it.

Something about this sofa makes my back itch. A lot.

Grrr... I hate it when higher ups email my boss an answer to a question I had. Like it was me who brought up the whole issue and the policy change, but rather than cc me on the email he sends it to my boss.

As a final, private farewell to this place, I thought I'd take a tidy little crap before heading off to the going away happy hour. Well, this place is not one to be reckoned with. As I making those straining sounds (you know what I mean), I heard a flush from the handicapped stall - the one where you never know if someone is in there or not unless they make some noise. How perversely appropriate that my last moments here are marred by yet another breach of poop etiquette.

Adios, losers. (Not you. This job.)

This one IM'd in from Heather who works at Disney:
"For some reason my boss's phone number was given out as TWDC number to call for people to complain about us not releasing Michael Moore's film... we got a temp in just to answer phones and transfer all those calls to a company complaint line."

Thursday Peeves:
1- Waking up in a drool puddle of my own making.
2- No hot water in the building. Since we live in a townhouse, we have to call the HOA to come and light the pilot light.
3- Which means no shower.
4- (Not a peeve) Today and tomorrow and then I am done with this place. My promotion and raise seem to have gone through last week, which I noticed in my paycheck. Now I can change the title on my resume to Sr. Business Systems Analyst. Woo.
5- I saw a straight guy with eyebrows that were clearly waxed. I think guys should try to achieve a more natural look.
6- Turning 30. Cripes. My cousin turned 30 yesterday. I have two cousins born the same year as I, with me being the youngest of three. It feels like they have both jumped off a cliff, executing perfect dives into the water down below and I am the only one left. I was never very good at going in head first, though.
7- Packing, moving, etc. I keep piling up packed boxes and yet I do not seem to make a dent in the quantity of stuff we have to pack.
8- The dog needs his claws trimmed. This is a two-person job to which I am not looking forward.

Grrr... Circular trouble -

So last night the beautifully repaired computer got fired up. I connected to the net and MSN told me to download the newest version of messenger. I did so. After I restarted and tried to log on, I would get this error and the system was shutting down in 1 minute. Then it would shut down and when it restarted I would get one of those microsoft bug reports to send in. In order to send it, you have to be logged into the net. Through many subsequent logging on and being shut down, I discovered that the error is taken care of by a critical patch. Which of course I can't download because I can't keep the computer on for more than 60 seconds. Circular trouble. :S However, except for that, it works fine and I played about 1/2 a game of Age of Empires 2 last night!

Home Buying Woes

Through no fault of my own... Ok, that's a lie. Even though it is entirely my and my husband's fault, I am still irritated. We have to extend escrow by a couple days because we didn't have the rest of our funds ready to buy the new house. The sellers are being total dicks and squeezing us for as much money as they can. At first they wanted a lump sum of $1000 for a four day extension. My Realtor told them to fuck off and countered with $100 per day. Dicks countered with $500, which my Realtor (with my permission) agreed to as long as it was stated as a rate of $125 per day since we knew it wouldn't take us four days.

We were planning to get the cashier's check and take it to the escrow company today at lunch. My Realtor called around 10:15 AM and tells me that it is in our best interest to get the check to the escrow company ASAP since the lender has a cut-off of 11:30 AM for next day funding. If we don't make the cut-off, then that is one more day that will cost us $125. The bank took for freaking ever to cut the check. We hit traffic on the way to the escrow company. When we got there, the escrow people were moving about as if in a slow motion play. We left the escrow company at 11:20 and may or may not be screwed out of an extra $125.

Peeve: People who make tentative plans with you and say they'll call around a certain time and then call, like 8 hours later. Oh wait. That was me who did that to Michelle who is probably peeved that she can't peeve about it since I read these peeves. I accept this peeve and counter with another peeve: Michelle is leaving me alone to suffer these fools we call co-workers. Forget one drink a day at lunchtime, I'm going to have to start getting drunk at breakfast.