Bad driving is contagious.

On my commute to work this morning, I was marvelling at how inattentively, aggressively, and/or just plain badly the other commuters were driving. Then I realized that in order to hold my own among them, I had also begun driving more aggressively. How many of these drivers were driving more reasonably before they encountered their first carrier of bad driving, and for how long? Someone needs to do a study.

Another thought about driving and contagion: does anyone else laugh whenever they see trucks for the shipping company called MS Carriers?

More about American Idol

We managed to have a day free of the sounds of Amercan Idol singers, but I did get to hear more about Tess' trip to see Clay Aiken sing. Tess is a bit of an addict. Read about it here.

Music

I've been working at a temp job with two other people in a small room. We're sorting some stuff and stuffing some envelopes and enveloping all sorts of things, and things are getting confusing so I'll stop this sentence!

The main point I've been working up to is that I have been forced to listen to American Idol singers on repeat all day today. I'm not being paid enough to endure this kind of torture.

I have to go now, so that I can gather some CDs and find a few that the other two will not find objectionable, so they'll let me play something different.

Bumper stickers

I have decided that I'm going to go ahead and put bumper stickers on my new car. I'm still that kind of person. I am fairly sure I will be that kind of person for at least the next handful of years. If I change my mind, it's nothing that careful removal with hot soapy water can't fix.

There are a few kinds of bumper stickers I will avoid:

Sayings that begin with either of the words "I" or "My": So, who's saying "I hate mondays"? Is that the driver, or the car? Is the car's child an honor student?

Political stickers: I do not need any small minded people who disgree with my views to key my car.

Patriotic bumper stickers: It's not that I don't love this country, it's just that I don't feel compelled to conform to this expectation that people seem to have that I want to state it with my car. These people might as well all have stickers that say "Bandwagon Patriot since 9/11/01!"

Anti-cop stickers: As funny as "Bad cop! No donut!" may be, it's also certain to get you pulled over for going one mile over the speed limit.

So what kind of stickers will I put on my car? Primarily geeky stuff. My car is turning out to be an ultimate geekmobile even without bumper stickers, and I see no reason not to continue the trend. So far I have the Strong Bad and MST3K clings in the window, I have fuzzy D20's hanging from the rear-view mirror, I have an order in for a Starfleet Academy window sticker strip for the rear window, and my STRNGBD license plates will be ready at the DMV in about a week. I've also been drilling through some dice with my Dremel so I can make Mardi Gras style necklaces to also hang from the rear-view mirror, in imitation of the girly-girls who proudly display the ones that they may or may not have earned in front of Girls Gone Wild camera crews.

Looking for static

Why is it so hard to find good geek-reference window clings for my car? I've searched all over the place online, and I can find the random one here or there, but nowhere that has 3 or 4 in one place (I refuse to pay outrageously high shipping on orders from multiple places.) Everyone's in a hurry to sell me stickers that will ruin my new car's bumper, but no one is interested in selling me a window cling that isn't sports-themed.

So far, my rear window has a Strong Bad cling, and an MST3K cling. I want more geeky goodness!! If anyone had any websites to recommend, I'd be very grateful.

More about food poisoning

It may not have been the BK french fries. I got sick right after eating those, but if it was a food-borne virus, it was probably incubating all day since the Quiznos salad that I had the night before. The Quiznos store in question is a new location, and it kind of has a hole-in-the-wall-y feel to it, compared against other Quiznos locations.

Food poisoning

I thought I was going to die last night. I wanted to die last night. I'm still feeling too crappy to write much, but suffice it to say that it will be a long time before I eat Burger King french fries again.

Random thoughts

One time, my friend Josh and I were talking about nothing in particular, and I asked him his weight. He said, "I could tell you, but then I'd have to eat you."

When I have a lot of sneezes all in a row, I call it "having a sneezure." I think my mom made the term up, but I could be wrong.

When people say, "yes," I turn around, thinking that they've called my name.

What I want to be when I grow up

The problem is, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up. What I do know is that my resume cannot afford another one-year job-hop while I try to figure that out.

The solution: temping.

So every time I call in to see if there's something available, they try to pressure me into accepting a temp-to-hire position. I ask them to describe the position, and my gut clenches as I envision spending more than a week doing whatever the job consists of. Then I give them some nonsense about the possibility of my husband being transferred at some point in the next year, etcetera, etcetera.

So the itinerary for the immediate future is:

• I work through Friday at the place I've been for the past 4 months. I was supposed to have finished yesterday, but things were very hectic and we weren't able to accomplish the changeover where I train one of the permanent employees to do what I've been doing. The earliest that we can do it is Friday, so my very cool supervisor is going to find stuff for me to do, rather than hold me in limbo without an assignment (my staffing agency has been waffling about finding something for me) for the next few days. Granted, they're only going to have me there for the 4 hour minimum per day, but it's better than nothing.



• I start the following Monday at some insurance company or something, doing data entry. It's a dollar less per hour than the current assignment, and it's like 5 times the work. At least it's full time, and I don't have to be there at six-fucking-thirty-in-the-morning. I do have to be there at eight-in-the-fucking-morning, but that's a lot more reasonable. The assignment is supposed to last one to three weeks, but the placement dude said that it may go for a month or two. (So why not say it lasts anywhere from one week to a couple of months? Feh.) The dress is casual, but I own mostly office style stuff anyway.

So, instead of sitting at work and twiddling my fingers with nothing to do (as I did at this time of day every day for the last four months), I'm doing so at home. I'll start getting ready for work in an hour, and after that, I'll go out and remove several pounds of snow from my car. Then I'll get to work and sit there and wait for them to come up with tasks for me to do. I'll probably write something at All Write, Already!, and maybe I'll play a game or two of Settlers of Catan, and possibly read a couple of chapters of my Dragonlance novel, "Dragons of Somethingorother." Then I'll twiddle my thumbs.

One would think...

One would think that in icy conditions, drivers would be more likely to use their turn indicators before zooming into the tiniest of gaps between cars at 40 mph, wouldn't one?

Bad news and good news

The bad news is that I've been robbed of my yummy, yummy conflict.

The good news is that Stephanie is not a grinch.

Here is the latest missive, from me to her:

Thank you very much for your email. I appreciate the way you handled this. I feel a lot better about it.

I'm sorry about your holiday woes, and I appreciate your apology and your intention to make it right.

Happy new year!

Jessica Bragg

On Mon, 03 Jan 2005 18:37:24 -0500, Stephanie wrote:
> Jessica,
>
> I'm so sorry for not emailing you back sooner or getting you a gift from your Wishlist. I lived at home with my mother until just last week and was without Internet access for most of December. I have two younger brothers, and we all share the same computer. Incidentally, one of them got the computer 49 viruses! Unbelievable, but entirely true. I also just moved to a new college campus and installed my Internet connection only a few moments ago, thus I haven't had any access for the past month or so.
>
> I apologize for any bad feelings that you felt. I intend to make this right; you have every right to be upset.
>
> Keep your eye on your mailbox.
>
> Merry (Belated) Christmas,
> Stephanie

So, I feel a little sheepish, but not that much.

Grinch karma

Picture it - Christmas 2004. I'm full of jolly feelings and holiday cheer. I decide that the secret santa pool at work isn't enough, and decide also to join in the reindeer games at ThinkBlank. Basically, the idea is that you set up an Amazon Wishlist, and then you sign up and get put into the drawing. Then when everyone's assigned, you buy your person a $15-ish gift from his or her wishlist, and Amazon hides the address from you but mails the goodies.

Well, I got screwed. I had a feeling it would happen, and I was prepared for it, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to bitch about it.

I sent a reminder email when the reveal was done on Christmas, and received no response. Today, I sent the following, with a cc to the ThinkBlank people:

Stephanie Grinch,

Hi. I was the person that you drew for Secret Santa. I'm also the
person who sent you the email quoted below, over a week ago. I'm also the person to whom you did not send a present. I'm also the person to whom you did not have the courtesy to send a reply email.

I double-checked my amazon list to see if something was purchased, just in case you were running behind. I double-checked my spam mailbox, just to make sure I didn't filter out a reply from you. Guess what! This is just a case of you completely ignoring me, along with the fact that you reneged on a promise.

It's all good. What goes around, comes around. I suggest walking wide of large puddles, cause instant karma's gonna get you.

With all sincerity,

Jessica

On Sat, 25 Dec 2004 09:32:10 -0600, Jessica wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I was the person you drew for secret santa from the thinkblank site. I
> haven't received anything yet. Is there a problem of some sort?
>
> Jessica

I wonder what will happen. I do so love conflict. This may be a present all by itself!

Stuff I hate...

Stuff I hate at this moment:

ice that takes 20 minutes to scrape off my vehicle
road surfaces that make my car sound as if it might have a flat tire
climate control systems that can't decide whether to be too hot or too cold so they change it up randomly and I have to wear layers but because I was running late and knew I'd have to scrape my car I forgot to bring a sweater and wouldn't you know it today's a cold day damnit.

Writing

I'm being coerced into writing. It's not just the friends saying, "so make with the updates, already!" It's also my knowledge that if I don't actually stick with updating daily, I'll let this fall the way of my box full of only partially filled composition books.

I knew I wanted to put something in my blog, but I wasn't inspired. So I played around with the html/css/whatever to make dotted lines appear after all the comments. Not having any idea what I'm doing with this stuff in the first place, I see it as a huge victory that I accomplished it. I also see it as a procrastination device.

So, here I am, writing. What I'm writing isn't particularly interesting, but it's an update, damnit.

Superstition

First of all, let me assure you that I logically understand that superstitions are a load of crap. I understand that superstitious people generally bring about the result that they are fearing through their own actions, and yadda yadda yadda. I know this. However, I must confess that I subscribe to a superstition, and have for many years.

My superstition is simply that whatever I am doing on New Year's Eve will be representative of how the rest of the year will be spent. If I go to a party, I will be more socially active. If I stay home, I will have a lot more at-home stuff to do, etc. So far, this has held true every year.

So, how's 2005 going to go? Pretty much like 2004. I'll do a lot of web browsing, eat a lot of cheese and crackers, and spend time with my cats and my husband.

I can cope with this.