U.S. Olympic Giant Washer Count, 2/20/06

Gold Giant Washers: 7
Silver Giant Washers: 5
Bronze Giant Washers: 3

Total: 15

Absolute Power Quote of the Week, 2/19/06

"Martin, you made this bed. Prepare to eat it."

Dadgummit

JLR got that dadgum Hollaback Girl song stuck in my head the other day. We both realize that the song is not one to be recorded in the annals of Great Songwriting, and neither of us actually like the song, but it nonetheless gets stuck in our heads from time to time...usually because one of us inflicts it upon the other.

The reason for this post is to point out (to those of you who haven't already seen it) Greg Stacy's hi-larious explanation of the lyrics for "Hollaback Girl." Thanks to Mr. Stacy, instead of cringing, I now smile whenever I hear the song.

I'm Awake, I'm Awake, I'm Awake, I'm Awa--snzzzzz......

Deals is out today, making me feel a bit like the Little Red Hen.

("Who’s going to help me make the coffee? Who’s going to help me drink the coffee?")

Sigh.

Lunch today, and Wheeeee!!

Had a Murderous Mocha at lunch (the coffee shop/restaurant's name for it, not mine), mmmmmm, plus onions in my black eyed peas, so bad breath, too much caffeine, got the shakes, but oh, my, I'm productive. (AM, think "my, this soup's delicious," 'cause that's how I'm thinking it in my head).

And yes, the above side note to AM is a "shout out" to Have Suitcase...Will Travel. Come to think of it, why am I using the term "shout out"? Hmm, perhaps fodder for another post.

Back to work! You're not getting paid to believe in the power of your dreams!


(And that, my friends, is a shout out to Despair, Inc.)

A Question to Ponder

Why are the vowel-sounds in "flood" and "food" pronounced differently?

Perhaps a word historian can answer that for me. Is it because they have different etymologies?

The Not Good Day

I don't know how it is at your job, but not too long after I started at mine, a "reign of terror" began, and it wasn't uncommon to come to work only to find that yet another co-worker had been booted out the door for no good reason. It was the same at my sister's job, worse actually. Her boss believed that it was good policy to fire people randomly (and often), just to make sure nobody slacked off or tried to cross him. Anyhow, things have been much better at my job over the past few years--no one has been fired since at least, oh, 2003--but I still unconsciously brace myself for a trip to the unemployment office whenever the boss seems unhappy or wants to see me in his office. Imagine how I felt at lunch one day last week, then, when my supervisor came in to the breakroom and announced (in front of three of my co-workers and a volunteer) in an unhappy-sounding tone that he wanted me to be in his office at 4:00. "Four o'clock?" I thought, alarm bells ringing. You see, that's the end of the day. And the end of the day is when they fire people. Actually, the end of the day on Friday is when they usually fire people. "Oh, well, at least it's not Friday," I said to myself and then immediately began to panic as I realized, "Holy *%@#, it's Friday!!!!" [Pardon my bad language. I'm not usually prone to swearing, but, I'm sorry to say, when I panic, sometimes the bad words just come out. Anyway, I was sure I was going to get fired.]

I hurried back to my office in order to clean all of the personal messages about of my e-mail account. There's nothing obscene in my e-mail, mind you, it's just that I don't want my co-workers reading about my diet failures or my occasional "digestive difficulties," which I am prone to discussing with my close friends via e-mail. I opened up my "saved messages" folder and glanced in horror at the number of messages I had saved there--more than 4,000! "That can't be right," I thought to myself, but yes, it was. I hastily began forwarding them to my personal e-mail account, but didn't have time to forward more than about 1500 before my meeting rolled around. My left shoulder muscle got all kinked up from repetitive motion.

As it turned out, my supervisor just wanted to make sure that I knew that I have absolutely no decision-making authority whatsoever. Apparently, I had made a decision about something without consulting him first, and that just will not do. So I learned something that day. It wasn't a good day, but it was an educational one.