Wednesday, May 31, 2006

work stuff

so here are a few things that happened lately at work.
 
- today i was really stressed out. there is a project that is supposed to go live tomorrow and the person in charge of it has been giving me HELL about it. i found out today at around 3 o'clock that 2/3 of it had been done completely wrong. i was so angry, because it was one of the most challenging projects i have ever done. i was so angry and felt so bad that i just started crying. it was really weird. two people were around me and they were sort of shocked but trying to make me feel better. i felt really stupid. shortly before that, i was telling dan about how much i hated this project and he was like "i bet mine is worse. want to trade?" we say that about every day. well, after my episode, he said to me, "elizabeth, i don't want to trade anymore." ha, thanks. anyway, it was weird. i am not sure what it says about me. i doubt too many people have cried at work. however, this guy was really being hard on me. i severely dislike him. and i was getting a million directions from a million people, and they turned out to be different. who would have known? i felt like it was my fault, but i don't think it was.
 
- dan and i had a conversation about pets today, because i was telling him about how i didn't get a cat. i also told him about how ringo snores extremely loudly. he told me about his brother's cat and how "it might be satan." then he wanted to look up what different cats looked like and he typed in "attacking cat" in google images. that was funny. even funnier, a picture of dustin hoffman came up, and we couldn't figure out why.
 
- we also talked about funny ways to die.
 
- when dan got into a car accident last week, he said, "I don't know, it's supposed to change your outlook on life and all that? Nope. Made me a little thirsty, though."
 
- This annoying woman at work was talking on the phone to someone and she got really upset. She was talking about someone else, I gathered that. She said into the phone, "For God's flippin' sake! He's insane!" or something. Then she went, "Oh, sorry! sorry! sorry!" And apologized like 9254 times. Wow, I didn't know people were so sensitive...
 
- The other day our network went down for the 50th time this week. The phone started ringing and we all just started laughing our asses off. Hotline is funny sometimes, esp. times like that.
 
- Someone we work with (who we all dislike) was trying to test something that involved uploading an image. She is notorious for not knowing anything about computers. Well, she was like, "I can't get this picture uploaded!" Pat finally found out that she was trying to upload a Word doc!! HAHA! Dan goes, "I'm surprised she didn't try to upload Yahoo Messenger!" That was hysterical.
 
- Dan gets frustrated a lot, and yesterday his choice saying for frustration was, "If you hear something that sounds like a guy breaking his own neck, that will be me."
 
- Someone called the hotline today complaining that they can't fit all of their text in. Idiots...if there is a text area that stops letting you type, wouldn't you assume that there is a limit to how much you can type? Besides that, there is one of those character count things that shows you how many letters you have left. I couldn't believe it. Dan goes, "Tell them to dumb down the text a little. It's real estate, not the Pulitzer."
 
That's about it.
 
------------------
 
The other day in Madison we (Sarah, Melissa, and I) saw Trina. She was with some friends and immediately started Liz-bashing. Melissa said she heard it, and I could just tell. I've never known someone who has hated me so much for no reason. I felt VERY bad and uncomfortable.
 
I have to find a picture of this horrible statue in Madison. I know Emily will find it hysterical.

Bright Eyes

Sometimes I don't understand why everyone doesn't like Bright Eyes. For instance, here is a song.

Here's a scale, weigh it out and you'll find, easily
More than sufficient doubt that these colors you see
were picked in advance by some careful hand
With an absolute concept of beauty
They are smeared and these blurs come in random order
And they color the eyes of your former lover's
Hers were green like July,
Except when she cried they were red
Now I know a disease that these doctors can’t treat
You contract on the day you accept all you see
Is a mirror, and a mirror is all it can be
A reflection of something we’re missing
And language just happened, it was never planned
And it’s inadequate to describe where I am
In the room of my house where the light's never been
Waiting for this day to end
And these clocks keep on winding and completely ignore
Everything that we hate or adore
Once the page of a calendar is turned it’s no more
So tell me then, what was it for?
Oh tell me, what was it for?


To me that's simply a supreme example of what English can be. It's perfect in so many ways.

I do get that music-wise he probably isn't everyone's cup of tea. However, there are times when I don't really understand that concept. Like right now. I don't really get at the moment how it is that some music is distateful to some people. Until I think of Nickelback. Then I get it.

Tonight I am going to do bills, maybe write in here about a hysterical conversation I had with Dan today and also how I burst into tears at work today, and write a letter. I've descended back into almost complete Tom infatuation. I hate my subconscious for doing this to me. I was making real progress. I wasn't even really sad when I left Madison. Well, I was, but not because of him. AGH! Asshole mind....

Dream

I had a dream about Tom last night.
 
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
Curses!
 
Months and months of trying to feel better, and it's all undone with one rogue act of my subconscious. That thing is powerful.

Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Marshall Field's

Marshall Field's is a great store. I should go there more often (and spend all of my paycheck, as I astutely remarked to Sarah while we were there yesterday). Weird that it was yesterday, but it was. I bought the most beautiful piece of jewelry I have ever seen, a piece that refuses to take any picture, just as I do:







That does not do it any kind of justice, but I've taken approximately 40 pictures of it and that's the best my camera will do. Also, there is no picture online because it is apparently new.

It's a little over an inch in diameter, I think, and is very sparkly. I should not have put it on a brown background because it makes it look more filled in than it is. Anyway, it was well worth the slightly expensive price. It wasn't that expensive as far as fine jewelry goes, but it's more than I'd usually pay.

The find of a lifetime at Pop Deluxe

Every time I go to Pop Deluxe I like it more. I felt bad for Sarah because I made her stay there for a really long time. But anyway, as many of you know I love bags, especially the messenger kind (even though I don't use them that often). And of course, I love London. So check out what I ran across at this store:

















That's right...a messenger bag with a map of London on it. I love it so much that if there is a God and hell I will be sent to hell for worshipping this bag. Okay, that's not true, but I do love it because it is so me. I also purchased a small "sculpture" of Big Ben there.

So those are two of my most fun and lovely purchases of my life, which happened to happen within a day of each other.

Shortly I will put a few pictures on facebook, but I think it's not going to be that many because I got bored doing levels on them (as usual).

Advertising words

Someone else has noticed the use of made up horrible words in advertising. Even better, they used my most favorite one. (this is from The Onion):
Ancient Studies professor Elgin Strudwick begrudgingly accepted te term "crumbelievable" to describe Themistocles' naval strategy at the Battle of Salamis.
The Ireland movie with Cillian Murphy won unanimously at Cannes. I don't really care that much about that, but I thought I'd mention it since Laura and I looked up that movie the other day on imdb.

Monday, May 29, 2006

Stranded in New Lisbon

Oh man. I had a shit afternoon. I went to Madison this weekend sort of on a whim, which I will write about later. On the way back home, surprise! My car broke down. It sort of just went dead electrically as I was driving. It was so fun. Luckily the brakes and acceleration still worked. But I thought I should stop, because the blinkers were not working. I turned it off and it wouldn't start again (so much for my theory of "restarting solves 90% of problems" - haha). I was at a gas station and call my dad, who then left to pick me up. I was 2 hours away from Rochester. Eventually the car was able to start again so when my dad came I tried to drive it as far as possible. That happened to be about 5 miles. That time it was freaking out and eventually went completely dead, even the steering. It was incredibly scary to be driving with a car like this on the interstate. For instance, the speedometer was not working so I didn't know how fast I was going. Lights were flickering on and off and the car was lurching forward at times. And, I couldn't steer. I coasted into the next exit and wrenched it around the corner and there it stopped. My dad said that the alternator is broken, which apparently is the thing that charges the battery. He put in a new battery which allowed us to drive it to a better location (a wayside rest). He thinks it's going to get a ticket anyway.

It's scary how much stuff is controlled by the battery. THANK GOD the gas and brakes aren't. Especially the brakes.

So, now we have to get the part (since nobody was open today, of course), and drive back there, and fix it, and drive back here. I am in Rochester right now. I have to drive back to St. Paul tomorrow morning. This is perhaps the biggest and most annoying hassle of my life. I feel so bad in many ways about the entire thing.

The car was just in for a "checkup" about a month ago. Nice job they did....

Saturday, May 27, 2006

i cannot do it

i was thinking of adopting a cat, but i just cannot do it. i even bought cat litter and cat food. and i knew exactly which one i was going to pick, and what name. i just cannot do it, though. blah.

Friday, May 26, 2006

major case of kool-aid saliva going on right now

i just watched the movie sin city and LOVED it. i think that is one of the most interestingly and beautifully done pieces of work i've seen in a long time. there were a couple of overly gory parts, but in general it was great. man. well done.
 
so...not much else to say. it has been freakishly hot this week, but cold inside work and my apartment.

Wednesday, May 24, 2006

i managed to stretch out my work to 7 hours today

although part of that time was spent doing nothing due to a network outage (AGAIN). we had some hysterical goings-on today at merrill corp. i will write about them sometime. i almost said "right"...isn't weird how you can make those errors in writing? just goes to show you how you (or at least i) write...by thinking of the words in your (my) mind.
 
this morning right around 9:30 the boss rallied the managers for an emergency meeting. i was kind of worried about what they were talking about, and the worry became terror when immediately afterward my manager comes to me and goes, "can i see you in my office, please?" i don't think it will be easy for me to get over the horror of hearing those words, after the different things that happened at the library. anyway, i was like, "shit, i'm going to get fired...maybe they were mad that i was on gmail the other day..."
 
but it turned out to be this special project that i am going to be in charge of. apparently the president of our division wants this store to be created and done extra quickly and they are putting me in charge of it. so i am to do nothing else for the next three weeks or so. i suppose this is one of those moments where i prove my worth, etc etc, blah blah blah. lately my manager has been saying things like "i trust you to be on hotline without anyone around" and "i had you in mind for doing the monday late shift in case you ever want to take a weekend trip, so you can have more of a rest" - it is totally opposite from a while back when i thought she hated me.
 
so it wasn't bad at all. hey, the best news is that i get to drop all my other stuff. so, someone else gets to deal with that crap i was doing yesterday! YAY!
 
i'm going to see l & m tonight, which should be fun. i might try to get home for stargate this evening.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

p.s.

i love how right after i said it was cold this year, it was 84 degrees. that's right, it was 84 today, and humid as hell. the uv index was 9, meaning you'd burn in 10 minutes. or, if you're me, you'd burn in 10 seconds. i tried to run back and forth to my car.

today

today has been about 2384729374928374928374 times better than yesterday.
 
1) i went home and went to two stores and still got home again an hour before i usually would.
 
2) i woke up at 8 and did not feel bad all day.
 
3) dan and i had a funny conversation today
 
4) i am watching simpsons
 
on the flip side, i got extremely angry today at something i was working on. it's because these assholes that are in marketing don't know what they're doing. i was so mad at them. it doesn't sound like it right now, and that's because i said to myself, "i have to leave this project or i'm going to flip my lid." so i did, and i cooled off a little.
 
if any of you guys are ever in marketing, please try to understand something about what you tell others to do. try to understand the systems behind your stuff, OR AT LEAST give people everything when you set up a project.
 
we've been so pissed lately because they'll give us a project but then won't give us the item numbers for a month. we can't do anything without item numbers. then they give us the item numbers and say "by the way, we're having a demo tomorrow so we need this done."
 
FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
sorry. anyway, it's been an increasing problem. that's only about 1/3 of the issue i was pissed about today.
 
a guy at best buy today totally wanted to date me. i could tell. ever since i became cool, around two weeks ago, people everywhere have fallen in love with me. i'm just that awesome.
 
i went to target. i really need to avoid that store. it's like, when i go there someone says, "hey, it's elizabeth, get out the vacuum" and then they lug out a giant vacuum with a money-shaped hose, and aim it toward my person. and then my money is gone. good thing i don't have much cash. anyway, i ventured into the jewelry section (bad idea) and found 73458 things on clearance, which every girl knows means "i have to buy it because it's cheap." sneaky buggers! there were some earrings i had had my eye on before and they were $4 now. they were in my basket before i even knew it.
 
p.s. thanks for reminding me about 'undreds of 'em, laura. i totally forgot about that part.

Monday, May 22, 2006

brain II / the longest and most disjointed blog entry of the year

i really, really, really need something to get my mind off of everything. my mind literally feels like it is traveling 1000 miles per minute. i hate it. anyone have any ideas? because i don't.
 
because i want to complain more, i'll do just that. i haven't been feeling well for a while. a long while. i'm consistently exhausted and i am frequently dizzy and headach-y. i can't remember the last time i had any kind of normal energy. i am extremely pissed off at the amount of time i need to sleep. especially since it doesn't really seem to be helping anything. it makes my life a total waste if i only have 3 hours of free time a day. i'm nervous about what working 9-5 is going to do to me. i'll just have to get to bed earlier, I guess. which leaves me the same exact amount of free time per day. there were a couple of days recently where I got 7 or 8 hours of sleep and I thought I was going to die.
 
what else can i complain about? the fact that i am in a bad mood. that annoys me.
 
the fact that i wish there was a person who could stand talking to me every day, since i would love to talk to a person every day. i would love that beyond words.
 
the fact that my brain gets overloaded with crap and it makes me get in a mood like i am in now.
 
the fact that i sort of wish i was nonexistent right now or at least didn't have the capacity to think. maybe i could be a bird. that would be ok. but i would be a quiet one because i am a quiet person and i like quiet things.
 
there is apparently a remake of the omen that is coming out, which is weird because i was just talking about that last night to tom. this is going to be confusing because i was just going to talk about how i kind of miss tom today but i meant tom d. maybe i should call tom d. library tom or something. because they are bound to overlap in at least one blog entry. for instance, this one right here. i wouldn't be sure what to call tom p. cat tom (which is interesting in multiple ways) or music tom, or funny tom. but that makes library tom sound like he's not funny, and he is. i could also call them madison tom and philadelphia tom. that would probably work better. well, the fact is that i mentioned the omen to philadelphia tom yesterday, and today i sort of miss madison tom, but not really that much. only because i'm in a general bad mood and in the past year that has basically been synonymous with missing madison tom. so, i guess i don't really miss him, but it's one of those things that's kind of ingrained into my behaviour.
 
what was the point of that entire last paragraph?
 
well, to go on, i wonder what madison tom is doing. i have many times fought the urge to nonchalantly contact an intermediary, such as jessica. i'm sure she has seen him lately. but, i'd probably kill myself if i found out he was married or something. i am not ready for that type of information. something that would be cool to hear: "he's ok, but he's really depressed, because you are gone." that would be fine. i'd like to think he was at least slightly sad to see me go. one of my biggest dreams is for someone i know to just talk to him and then tell me what he said. especially if said person went and talked to him about me, because i'd be so interested in what he would say. i bet he wouldn't say anything at all. he was never the type of person to talk about others. he would only ever talk about me with me. i wonder if he ever thinks about me. i hope so. god, i wish i could talk to him.
 
what a horrible thing.
 
I WILL GET OVER HIM. someday. hopefully soon.
 
i left the library exactly a year ago, to the day.
 
i can't believe how different my life is now, and how different the world seems in general. for one thing, it's the end of may and it's cold out. a year ago it was friggin' boiling. i remember it being very humid.
 
one thing i would really enjoy is if i went to work tomorrow and had enough work to last me the entire day. is that too much to ask? some days i go there and finish everything in half an hour. those days suck. today i finished everything in about 6 hours. that's about normal. then i wrote email and chatted on gmail for 2 hours. i felt kind of bad, but not really.
 
my manager said she trusts me today. um, thanks. i also made her laugh a lot by doing a weird raising eyebrow motion. i don't know why that was so funny.
 
she said she was going to give lance, the new guy, a "mentor" and i hope she picks me because that would make me feel important.
 
oh man, last friday i made the discovery of a lifetime at work. i can't explain it because it's too involved, but it was a hotline issue that everyone was completely stumped about. i happened to look at it in a certain way where i figured it out pretty quickly. i was very proud of myself. i felt smart at that moment.
 
we're going to get a new person in july and october. please, god, please let them hire a young person. i can see that happening. she's going to start interviewing now. people are graduating, so it looks promising. actually, i started in october, so that might happen as well.
 
something i really love: english language
 
another thing i really love: england
 
something else: ben gibbard
 
do de do...
 
i signed up for netflix yesterday. should be interesting. and more cheap than ordering movies on on demand. it will also be nice to have a selection that's approx. 23403597 bigger than on demand. for instance, my first order is this obscure michael shanks movie from like 1995. called door to door. some other primary selections were other cillian murphy movies and other elijah wood ones i haven't seen yet. i found one that stars elijah wood and charlie hunnam. geeeeeeeee! charlie hunnam. :D i forgot about that kid.
 
hey laura, remember the very first time we saw queer as folk, and the first words out of my mouth were "oh, that's how they do that!"? HA!
 
are you having a starter? i'm not. i never have starters. yes i will. i'm having a starter. blimey! look at all these starters!
 
classic.
 
laura, i got the tickets and they were $12 plus like $13 surcharge. no, it was only $2.50 or something surcharge. a day will come when the surcharge is more than the ticket and i will not be surprised in the least.
 
hey emily, remember when we graduated high school? that was a long time ago. hey, remember mr. wright? do you remember edie something who had a beehive hairdo and won a date with mr. wright? i wonder how that went. remember tying bidisha or melissa to a table with ribbon? remember how i was extremely religious for like 6 months? what's up with that?
 
yes, folks, i was extremely religious for like 6 months. those 6 months overlapped with the time in which i wrote my senior quote in the yearbook so that thing is all religious. i regret that a lot.
 
remember when we worked at target and one time we laughed so hard i thought my guts were going to explode out of my body? because you were making a donkey noise? HAHA! and charlie and angela worked there too.
 
hey, how about when we were at a concert and sarah made some un-sarah-like (at the time) comment about how the song was like an orgasm?
 
how about when on saturdays we'd always be like "are you going to breakfast?" and it would always be a huge deal (for me anyway) to get up and go to breakfast.
 
there was this one time when dan wanted to go to mcdonalds and like 50 people latched on to the idea, and by the time everyone was ready we got there and it was closed, and he was pissed. so we went to big mike's.
 
hey, remember kirk penney's twin? and HATMANDU? hahaha! hatmandu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and omar! and...jason's roommate luke...and darth maul, and mel, who always sang the same song at the talent show.
 
how about peter! and ryan "these boots are made for walkin'" and braden.
 
i miss you guys so much.
 
POD. with a unifying goal to roll a ball across the hallway.
 

brain

my brain has been thinking too much in the past few days. it's pissing me off.

goals this week

this week i am ditching the water goal because it was driving me nuts. my bladder also didn't like it. maybe sometime i can do 32 oz. but 64 is not good. the rest are staying in place except for website because that was a one-time opportunity.
 
i'm happy to say i met all of the goals last week (during the business week at least, not saturday) except for yoga and icelandic on friday because i basically went home and went to sleep. that day sucked. i was inhumanly exhausted. i don't know what's with me never being able to get enough sleep.
 
today at lunch seth and dan got in a car accident. dan claims to almost have lost his arm because it was hanging out the window and the car crashed into his side, the passenger side. seth left work.
 
apparently the new guy started today but i have yet to see him. i think i'll nonchalantly walk by. oh, he's totally not here yet. what the hell?
 
 

Sunday, May 21, 2006

weekend

candy came this weekend. we went to lunch at fuddrucker's yesterday and then to mall of america. my favorite store that we visited was sephora. i've been wanting to go there for a while. i spent $70 for 3 things. um...then we went to olive garden for dinner and saw the da vinci code. it was a fun day.
 
i just got really tired of writing in here, but i don't know what else to do. i was trying to install sim city the other day, but realized that i don't have the registration key, because it is on the cd case, which is at home because i don't keep the cases around for software. so it's useless. i was pissed.
 
i watched a movie this morning called wolf creek. it is about these three kids (liked around 18-22 years old) that get stranded in the outback in australia. then they get abducted by this old guy and tortured, molested, and killed. one of them lived. it is apparently a true story. the worst part about the movie was that one of the kids was nailed to a board like jesus christ. then he had to rip his arms off the nails. that was the most disgusting thing i have ever seen. even worse than the body on csi last week. i had to cover my eyes for a few minutes until he quit screaming in pain. another thing that happened was the old guy severed the spine of one of the girls, so that she was still alive but paralyzed.
 
well, i'm going to go be bored somewhere else. i hate this day.

Friday, May 19, 2006

hi

for some reason i had to write about a bunch of news stories i saw today.
 
1. there was a story about how chris moyles of bbc radio 1 had some controversy around him. i used to listen to him every day and he was friggin' hilarious.
2. there was a story about cillian murphy and a movie he is doing about ireland that is supposed to be good. he is one of my fav. actors.
3. there's apparently going to be a cool interview with p. charles, william, and harry [not barrington, mind you. windsor.]. i don't know when or if this interview will ever be shown or heard or read by me, but it exists.
 
william barrington and harry barrington. ha. if you remember what i am talking about, i give you kudos. but not the granola/candy bar. just the abstract idea of doing well at memorization of my idiosyncrasies.

Thursday, May 18, 2006

ed harcourt

ed harcourt is great. our relationship has been steady and good since i first met him on a mix cd of british artists that i got for my website back in 2001. through three albums, through many an obscure instrument, through a couple of dalliances with a band called "wild boar," we have weathered the storms. [ok, so he's married, to a really pretty girl named gita harcourt...who's counting?]
 
i have missed ed in concert twice. oh, that pissed me off.
 
one of the things i like most about him is that all of his songs are completely different. i think he's probably one of the most versatile people i've known of in my time. he can play approximately 99458734 instruments, and does play them, in 845384 different ways. and, his voice is gorgeous. a traditional gorgeous voice. he would do well on american idol, or i guess pop idol. whether that's a good thing or not, i don't know. i wonder why he is not more popular. i wonder if he wants to be more popular. who knows. i do know that his song "apple of my eye" was mildly popular because once laura saw the video for it somewhere. where was that, anyway? man, that was a while ago.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

there are many things i need to do

instead, i spent the night trying to take a decent picture of myself so i can use something for facebook other than that one from sarah's 23rd birthday party.

the work story that was "long" is way too difficult to try to explain, but i will say this. i had to bring an issue to the attention of my group leader patrick regarding some stuff i was working on that had become difficult to deal with, and he had to get 3 higher up people involved, just because this one guy called peter is an idiot and doesn't want to admit he's wrong. we caught him in a bold-faced lie today. everyone was pissed at him.

the problem is that we have this hierarchical system that people have to go through to get stuff done. sometimes the people who are in marketing try to sidestep the system by directly sending stuff to me or dan or whoever. at times we just do it, but this guy peter sent me a shiteload of crap and i couldn't do it.

anyway.....we have a new guy starting on monday called lance. i cannot help but think of the medieval weapon when i hear that name. thanks, medieval studies certificate. i saw him when he was interviewing. he's like 35 or so. i swear to god they will never hire anyone my age.

also, i "get" to go back to working 9-5. i'm not sure i'm that happy about it, but at least i'll get to watch stargate, and actually get stuff done at night.

Blinking (as in turning)

Another thing: Something that pisses me off to no end is when people don't blink when they need to change lanes or turn somewhere. I HATE it when people just veer over into other lanes randomly, or turn somewhere without blinking. That has to be one of my hugest pet peeves. Gah! Just thinking about it now is irritating me.
 
I have a story to tell about work, but I am not going to tell it now because it is too long.

Speedometer

I was just talking to a coworker about driving, because she got into a car accident and is being sued. She said that they'll probably ask how fast she was going and she'll say she doesn't know "because anyone who knows how fast they're going all the time is lying."
 
I thought to myself, "Uh...I do..." because I look at the speedometer every 5-10 seconds. I'm obsessed with it and I have to go the speed limit or no more than ~3 over. She said she looks at it maybe every 10 minutes. I was shocked at that.
 
Is this weird? Do others of you look at the speedometer really often?
 
I'm now going to be really paranoid about that. I'm realizing at this moment that on my 30 second drive to work I look at the speedometer constantly. It's because there's a gradual decline in the road on the way to work, and if you don't brake you'll speed up quite a bit. So I always brake slightly before the bottom of the curve so as to maintain 32-34 mph.
 
I never realized how obsessive-compulsive I am about this and that it may not be the norm.
 
But, you know, it will do me well in the end. I am sure I'm less likely to get pulled over for speeding since I never do.