SHE LIVES!!!!!

I've been neglecting my blog as of late. Actually, I've been off the internet in general for a while, except to check emails. My friends all seemed to send me messages at once, asking if I was okay and so forth. Yes, I'm fine! Thanks for being concerned. :-) I miss you all, esp. those of you in OK, SC, and Latvia, and the various assorted forums I typically haunt. There's a new post on my other blog as well.

It's spring season again and work has been... well, I'm sure I've griped about it here before, so no need to rehash the details. It's just been typical for spring: busy and generally aggravating. A little over a month to go before it officially ends... but I don't foresee anything slowing down until at least the end of June, once all the 4th of July merch goes out. In good news (!!!) we got two new hires who are better than I could have hoped. One was transferred to another plant (read: STOLEN from me), sadly... I really liked the inch-long nail he has stuck in his eyebrow... but the other remained on my crew and is doing a great job. Oh... worth a mention... Boss is still on his erroneous "in lieu of" kick. I am thisclose to correcting him or simply beating myself on the head with Webster's until the pain overrides my irritation.

Speaking of spelling... I recently discovered the online game (Virtual world? Sim? RPG? whatever it's classified under) called Second Life. My sister had tried to tell me about it and get me into it quite some time ago, but I was one of those "Second Life is for people who have no First Life" advocates. Then, thanks to some friends who joined via one of our forums, I decided to pop in on a lark (i.e. was dragged in by the ankles, under protest). The idea was to talk to a particular musician related to the forum who was on SL in support of the new band lineup and forthcoming album. Well... he's been there, but I haven't met him yet... I found a buttload of considerably more interesting things to do, none of which I'm going to go into here... my rant is that most people who use SL also use scripted gestures: short audio clips with accompanying character movements and chat text, usually song lyrics or movie lines.

*cue spelling segue*

I want to know who writes the text part for these things. I know they're made by many, many different people, but I'm astounded by the fact that 99% of them can create a scripted gesture but cannot SPELL. How hard is it to look up a song lyric and copy/paste the desired lyric? It's not just songs, either. I'm talking common words... ones even a Microsoft spellchecker can't screw up... yet 4 out of 5 gestures have misspelled words. And EVERYONE uses them. It drives me bonkers.

Note: I've said before that live chat typos are not only exempt, but expected. I embarrass myself with the level of Typonese ability and fluency I've attained, and I make just as many errors as anyone else does on the fly, mainly because I can't type for squat. However... these pre-made gestures are used in place of live text chat, and therefore annoy the bejeezus out of me.

*end regularly scheduled grammatical rant*

On to other things...
People I meet online often ask me where I live, based simply on a comment from me that there is no Starbucks/McDonalds/anything else nearby, and shopping isn't something I can do around the corner. I like it that way. Granted, sometimes convenience would be nice, like when it's nighttime, the little local general store is closed, and I'm out of X necessity and have to drive 10 miles through the narrows (mountain/cliff road frequented by large hoofed wildlife fender magnets) to an open store. The lack of neon lights and 24/7 chain stores, however, tips the scales.

This past Sunday, Hub and I drove an hour to the city for a culture fix (i.e. breakfast cooked by someone else) and on the way home, we left the city route and took a detour through the mountains. It was an excellent day to enjoy the boonies. We saw a deer grazing in a field surrounded by wild turkeys, including a gobbler in full strut, and a red-tailed hawk watching nearby. How does that compare in any way to a view consisting of taillights, banks, and Funky Chicken Used Car Sales? It doesn't, in my humble opinion. We enjoyed the bucolic drive, emerging near another smaller city just in time to stop for a sushi dinner. Best of both worlds right there, folks. Perfect day.

Nothing much else to talk about... no vacation plans yet, but the beach trip will occur sometime before the next snowfall. (Maybe... June isn't here yet so there's always a chance for snow.) I need some sand between my toes and a fishing pole in hand in the worst kind of way. Heeeere fishy fishy fishy!

That is all.

AAAARRRGGGHHH

No, it's not "Talk Like a Pirate Day." At least I don't think so... anyway, picture that as more of a "Charlie Brown flying through the air after Lucy pulls the football away" kind of argh.

I have a very nice, expensive converter program and hardware that records VHS to DVD. Problem is, it was nice and expensive three years ago, and thus is now outdated and slow. It records VHS in real time, meaning it takes the entire running time of a video to upload onto my computer, and almost as long to "render" and convert and finally burn to disc.

This is the source of my argishness. Today was a beautiful, sunny, warm day, atypical for Pennsylvania in January. I could have been out waxing my car and enjoying the weather, but at lunchtime I decided to burn a home movie to disc instead. I had forgotten how long it takes. I'd also forgotten that the software saves on my main hard drive, which is full, so I spent a while moving stuff to the external to make room. (I have no idea how to change the destination folder for a program on the main drive to the new drive.) The video capture went fine, taking an hour and a half, and then the rendering began (another hour and a half) and then the burning. Near the end of the rendering I went to take a shower. Silly me. I came back and my program said the process was complete. I tested the DVD... nothing. I put it in a different player... nothing. It didn't burn. I learned that in order to restart the burn process, the stupid program goes through the entire rendering again.

Yes, I tried burning straight from the temporary file folder. I tried using a different burn program. Turns out the %#*$!!! program only saved three seconds of the movie. And yet, when I open the moviemaker to start the burn process over, it shows that it already used the full amount of space for the entire length and there isn't any free space left.

Before anyone suggests it, I used the computer instead of a DVD/VHS recorder because this way I can edit stuff, like volume control and graininess and all that. And of course I spent half an hour doing that before my movie got eaten. I'm just about ticked off enough to go buy a recorder anyway. Or upgrade my program, or reroute my VCR cables, or have a martini or something.

Argh.

*Update*

My movie is, in fact, saved somewhere on my hard drive. When I open the movie editor, it brings it up in its entirety. It also saved two 3-second snippets for some reason.

I changed the designation folders, so there are no space issues anymore.

It *still* wants to go through the whole rendering process again, but I'm going to set it up and let it run tonight and see what happens while I'm sleeping and not glaring at the screen.

My original VHS tape, the one I'm trying to convert, now has stuttering problems. I hope the burning etc. works this time because I think the (irreplaceable) tape is dunzo.

Caw caw!

In the movie "The Crow" a recurring song (and key line) is "It Can't Rain All The Time." The soundtrack to the film features this song. It's by Jane Siberry and is one of my favorites in that it captures the haunting, emotional tones of the film. By itself it's good; with the now-permanent Crow reference in my mind, it's great.

I always wondered, though... in spite of the title, the lyrics are "It won't rain all the time" and "can't" isn't used. Weird.

Flashback here: It Can't Rain All The Time

Save the Endangered Interrobang!

This is an interrobang. I am absolutely floored to learn I have one, wish it was common, and want this character on my keyboard (along with a right-side tab key). It is exactly what it looks like.. a combination of an exclamation point (a "bang") and a question mark (interrogative point). How is this not widely used‽ <--- Arial Unicode MS on character map

Wiki has info here.

I wonder how I could ever write without such a cool punctuation mark. Come on, people, get this one back out there!

Of Mouse and Me

The backs of my eyeballs hurt. I don't know why but they do, but it's a very odd feeling. It isn't the "behind-the-eyes-headache" kind of pain, or sinus pain (at least I hope not... ten days' worth of antibiotic pills the size of small submarines should have knocked out that pesky sinus infection, plus any of its relatives thinking of coming to visit). It just feels like any minute now an eyeball is going to make a run for it and pop out of my head. Interesting, but not desirably so.

Today was our holiday dinner at work. I didn't win either of the giveaway turkeys but I guessed the weight of each to within 3 ounces. Apparently I'm good at eyeballing plucked, frozen, large-breasted birds and determining their weight... maybe I should be running a Guess Your Weight booth for the Swedish Bikini Team winter carnival. Do they have one of those? I might be on to something.

I'm loving the heck out of my new iPen and tablet. Somebody please tell me why I didn't get one of these before. Oh yeah, I remember... I thought it was frivolous to spend money on unnecessary computer accessories when we had bills to pay. Good thing it was a gift! And a really cool one, at that. Also great timing... my HP mouse just croaked (squeaked?) and the cursor was zooming all over and opening stuff at random. I'd just switched to my backup trigger mouse before the old one decided to rewrite my registry or buy out eBay at 1 AM. Trigger mouse serves one vital function: it keeps anyone else from using my computer, because nobody knows how to use it. I can't use it myself for long due to a painful thumb joint caused, most likely, from using a trigger mouse.

Speaking of computer peripherals... I'm one of those who will use what came with the computer- keyboard, mouse, speakers- until it's absolutely necessary to replace them. My last keyboard saw me through two computers (it was a multimedia keyboard with all kinds of fancy buttons and functions, most of which didn't correspond to anything on the new comp, but it had volume control on it, and since I can't reach my speakers from here, I kept it just for that purpose) and when I finally replaced it, half the letters were worn off, the left shift key and the 1 didn't work, and the space bar only worked if you hit it in the right spot. This past summer I broke down and bought a new multimedia keyboard. May I just say... "quiet soft-touch keys," my fanny. It's just as loud as the last one. Why can't anyone make a keyboard that doesn't A. sound like a roomful of wind-up chattering teeth and B. require forcible keystrokes to register characters? Is it just me?

I have iTunes on party shuffle. Clay Aiken singing Solitaire just came on, causing me to wonder just what that malfunctioning mouse was doing while I was away. Clay Aiken?!? I just went from hearing Veruca Salt and STP... to American Idol. *no clue* Must investigate and see what else is on here I don't know about.

Lennon was Optimistic

I've been having One Of Those Days.
I decided to get my baking done, as much as possible. At the moment I'm taking five (or ten) to let my raisin filling (and myself) cool off a bit.

The first batch of peanut butter cookies overbaked, due to me getting distracted by my husband, who chose that time to explain to me how a lock tumbler from a vehicle (in this case, our Bronco) worked, or again in this case, wasn't working. I like stuff like that, and naturally had to examine the tumbler mechanism, in the process getting graphite all over my hands and letting the cookies burn. We're out of peanut butter so unless I make a third trip to the store today, I'm not making any more.

I pulled out the dough for the sand tarts. Too hard to roll, set aside to thaw a little. Made dough for raisin cookies, chilled, made raisin filling. Rolled out some raisin cookie dough, banged elbow on stand mixer. Didn't have a round cookie cutter, improvised with the top of a martini shaker. Filled one sheet of cookie bottoms, set aside. Told hubby there's not enough room to roll on the bake cupboard; he decides to remove everything from kitchen table for me. I help and knock his iced-tea glass over. He steps in the spilled tea while I'm searching for a dishcloth. I wipe up tea, he knocks over the entire pan of cookie bottoms. They go in the trash. Meanwhile he's lost his keys, which are attached to the lock tumbler; I find them on the dryer. He asks if I need any more help. I send him outside to put the Bronco door back together. Realize the sand tart dough is too dry and the raisin cookie dough is too soft. Back in fridge. See some spilled vanilla on the counter, start to clean it, discover it isn't vanilla. My beloved KitchenAid mixer is leaking oil. Finally able to make raisin filled cookies. Have much more filling than dough, thanks to earlier incident. Discover why nobody else likes making them, too time-consuming. Vow to purchase cookies from the Amish like everyone else.

Made bourbon balls with no problems, of course... I hate bourbon.

Update: raisin cookies are done, and delicious. I might tackle a batch of biscotti yet tonight. Hubby came in and told me I had flour handprints on my butt. He looked at the kitchen, decided not to ask what was for dinner, heated up leftovers and retreated to the other room. Now I have to clean up the aftermath, wash dishes, clothes, and myself, and limit biscotti-making to one surface if possible.

Nobody told me there'd be days like these... strange days, indeed.

Snow, snow, snow, sleet and snow

It's alternately sleeting and snowing again. We're on the line between weather patterns so we're getting a mix- a nasty, ugly mix- of winter precipitation. Housebound today, by choice. Might bake cookies. Might take a nap. Might finish reading my book, then take a nap. Nap sounds good.

I was up till almost daybreak, home while Hubby plowed the roads so that idiots with vain notions of invincibility in their overpriced, ego-stroking four-wheel-drive SUVs might actually continue harboring their delusions. I tend to enjoy seeing one of them fly past me, believing the speed limit +5 is a goal set in stone regardless of weather, then spot them farther down the road with wheels in a ditch, cursing into their cellphones because AAA won't be there for two hours. I only take pleasure in this if nobody's hurt, and I've been known to stop and check before laughing at them, so don't send me hate mail.

The other day I saw an SUV driver in a shopping center parking lot attempt to back around a corner into a freshly-vacated prime spot. She didn't see the stop sign- accelerated in reverse- just in time for her husband, exiting the store, to watch her back straight into it. I laughed. Being a female SUV driver probably had little to do with it, but the stereotype was there and it was funny.

Last night I went outside to see just how close I could slide to the corner store if I wore slick-soled boots and got a running start. No, it just felt that way. Stupid boots. Some guy was in his Bronco, snowplow on the front and ready to attack the residual elements, but he couldn't get it out of his lot. Tires just kept spinning the more he gunned it. I wondered if it was a bad sign that the plow guy couldn't get out, or, worse, if the plow guy was driving around with bald tires. He did, finally, get out after much slinging of ice and gravel. There really wasn't much on the ground but a thin sheet of ice so I have no idea what he thought he was going to plow. He didn't have an ice-melt spreader on the back either. Entirely useless battle between Goodyears and macadam, there. But at least he entertained me, however briefly.

DOT stealth mailbox plot revealed: It has come to my attention, from an unnamed source, that DOT plow drivers have modified their ritual downing of mailboxes to be less obvious. Instead of just burying a mailbox or knocking it over immediately to get it out of the way, as per the norm, drivers now work in teams. The first driver goes through, pushing the snow in front of the box, just enough to see the post wiggle. Joe Homeowner, watching from his living-room window, only sees that this obviously experienced driver did not blatantly mow down his mailbox, as in times past. Homeowner, pleased, retreats to his hot cider and newspaper. On each subsequent pass, the plow driver pushes the snow a little more; the post wiggles a little more. Homeowner goes to bed assured that he won't be buying yet another box, vowing to call and compliment DOT on their fine driver. Second shift comes in and plows the now-packed-and-stacked pile of snow into the base of the mailbox post, either sending it flying into the driveway or obliterating it under the chunks. Sometimes, for good measure, the driver will pile more snow on top so Homeowner won't know it's down until he comes out to dig the driveway out.

We don't have a home mailbox, but the post office driveway has been plowed in a few times. DOT hasn't figured out how to push snow directly into the lobby yet but I'm told they're working on it.

I should go bake cookies, make biscotti, eat something. Shovel today's snow off the walk. I really should. But my space heater is next to me, my feet are warm, and the nice glow from the monitor creates a comfortable ambiance. I'm in a good-vibe pod. Hate to break it up with reality, the reality that Christmas is NEXT FREAKING WEEK. Crap. I better get to baking! *pod=poof*

Disclaimer

I'm going in for oral surgery in the morning. I take no responsibility for any posts between now and the time the painkillers run out. :-D

See you on the moon! Bring pudding. Thx

Week of the Rat

Some random droppings:

• We got a little snow last night, not enough to stop anyone from going about their business but enough that the plow trucks are running. Supposedly, sleet and rain are coming later. Joy.
• Hubby got called in to plow last night. He's hoping they'll go to winter hours this week... he'll be off at noon and be able to hunt the rest of the afternoon. Freezer is looking empty.
  
• This past week at work, I personally removed nine dead Norway rats from one section. Usually we get field mice and voles, and maybe one rat a year... but nine rats of various ages all decided to expire within 20 feet of each other. Very odd. Maybe they were playing Lemmings and got carried away. *shrug*
  
• We're getting a Target! Well, not in our area, but close enough to drive to without making the long trek to the city. I <3 Target.
  
• I've barely started on Christmas. Going to be low-key this year. Oral surgery was postponed until the 13th so I really should get moving... I may not be in the mood, physically or mentally, to even think about going out after that. Attention shoppers: Cranky woman on painkillers in Aisle 10! Avoid at all costs! :-D

happy holler daze, y'all.

The mouths of babes...

Overheard in the living room:

"What's so bad about Philadelphia? Is that where all the rude people go that can't afford to live in New York?"

Get Fresh

A friend accidentally coined a phrase tonight, and I told her I was going to use it. So... here it is... the term "Fresh out." Not meaning fresh outta money or what-have-you, but:

Fresh out: to step away from the computer or video game and go outside for a breather. Also, telling someone they need to back away from whatever they're doing and calm down before re-attempting it.

"My eyes hurt from playing Kitty Cannon for the past hour. I'm gonna fresh out for a minute."

"You're only going to break something if you don't stop beating on that bracket. Go fresh out and come back to it later."

E, no 'phile

I'm not a wine snob... er, oenophile... I've never liked wine, except maybe the kind that comes in four-packs, is carbonated, and is labeled Bartles & Jaymes or Seagrams, and even those I could take or leave. On the rare occasions I have a drink, I prefer it to include good vodka in the recipe. On special occasions I'll have a margarita but my tastes are pretty constant otherwise.

When I was a kid in California, my parents would occasionally go to wineries for tasting. Usually these places had special tastefully-decorated rooms, with nice bars and correct glassware for whatever wine they were pushing. The visit often included a tour of the winery. I think I went along to maybe two of these wineries, and I recall hating the smell and how it lingered in my nostrils for days afterward.

Early this year I thought it would be "fun" to see if my tastes had matured. I decided the hubby and I should check out some Pennsylvania winemakers' offerings. A glass of red wine a day is supposed to be good for you, right? This was triggered, by the way, when a customer of his gave him a bottle of local red wine in lieu of a tip. It was drinkable, therefore a step in the right direction. That began our assault on PA/NY wines. We've tried maybe half a dozen now, possibly eight, and I find I still don't care for the smell or taste of reds.

I bring all this up to segue into our trip a couple of weeks ago. We were off on a foliage drive (after the elk country one) and happened to pass a sign for the winery that made that first bottle he brought home. They were open for tasting so we decided to check it out.

The drive to said winery was down a long back road. The place itself was a farm, with barns and animals and pickups. The "tasting room" was a garden shed, updated with a small bar and various assorted mounted critters and/or skins, as well as an electronic keyboard. Apparently their band used to practice there until most of their equipment was stolen. This wasn't the kind of tasting room I was expecting, but hey, this ain't Napa, so we went in with three other couples and a dog. The owner was a goofy fellow about our age who told dirty jokes and appeared to have been doing much more than tasting that day. As for the wine... he had three available; red, blush, and white. We'd had the red and I enjoyed it more than most since it had a decidedly pomegranate aftertaste (I love pomegranate). We were served in child-sized paper Dixie cups complete with cartoon animals on them. The cups were refilled with each kind of wine, so by the time we were on the white I had no idea if it was good or if I was just tasting a blend of all three plus soaked paper. Mr. Host continued with the jokes, the dog continued looking bored, and the deceased bear continued being deceased, so we bought two bottles (red and white) and left. Thus endeth our foray into redneck winetasting.

The red will be someone's hostess gift or Christmas present. I just finished the white, after my sister, husband and I cracked it a couple nights ago. For cheap redneck hooch... er, inexpensive small-batch wine... it's pretty good. However I've decided I much prefer Clover Hill wines, also inexpensive but with more variety, and I've realized I wouldn't know the difference between a "good" cabernet and a bad one. Odds are I'd like the cheap one better.

Especially if there was a dead bear nearby.

Treknecks?

I saw this ad for the Country Music Awards... don't know if this is a new logo, or if I just never paid attention before... that is totally the Star Trek icon. The black hole effect behind it just emphasizes the fact.

*envisions Worf doing a duet with Alan Jackson... then William Shatner singing country- well, anything, for that matter... shudders*

Edit: Here's the Starfleet Academy logo, some various Star Trek communicator pins, and two "event shirts" being sold on the CMA website. That's pretty close to be coincidental, eh? I'm picturing tapping my communicator and getting a cheery "Howdy! Y'all needin' beamed up?"

Slices of life... mmm, tasty!

For those of you with Blogger accounts, you've probably seen Blogger Play. It's a new-ish addition that works similar to the older LiveJournal photo feed, where you see the most recently-uploaded images to public blogs. However, Blogger Play is a real-time slideshow, although you can adjust the speed, pause, and even click an image to take you to its relevant post. It's incredibly addictive.

I'd like to have this as a screensaver... just a constant stream of random images from people all over the world.

It's a sign!

Saw two funny things yesterday...

In the classifieds of a local paper, I saw a help-wanted ad for TPS Systems. First thing that came to mind: I betcha *somebody* there really does have to write TPS reports... and I bet that somebody is sick of the jokes by now. I'm keeping my eye on the fire company reports.

Cardboard sign tacked to a telephone pole: "Medical/Dental Coverage, Pre-Exiting Conditions Accepted!" Heh heh... if I had a pre-exiting condition, I wouldn't be needing that insurance, I don't think. Maybe it means if you have a terminal illness and you know the great hereafter is imminent, they'll still kindly take your premium money?

Humor is off today. I'll try to find something better later...

Flaming Elk Drive

Yesterday we went to the Flaming Foliage Festival in Renovo, PA. Neither of us had ever been to the festival, and I had never seen Renovo or points west of it.

Renovo

The foliage was uncooperative; due to unseasonably hot weather up until last week, the color change was delayed a week or two, so the leaves were only 20-40% turned. Yesterday's weather was great though. It felt like a perfect fall day with a nice breeze skittering the dead leaves across the roads like orange spiders. The scenery, too, was breathtaking in places. We saw hang gliders taking off from Hyner View State Park.

When I read the route description online prior to our trip, one item caught my eye. Our route went through elk country. A "highlight of the drive," according to the description, was the possibility of hearing elk bugling during mating season, which happens to be now. A few times before, I'd mentioned to Hubby that it would be neat to go see the elk sometime. I found a viewing area listed, so I plotted it on our map, and off we went. I probably should have gone digging a bit deeper and found out more about elk-watching, but I was under the impression that there was a fenced field or something with a lookout point where tourists could watch the critters. Didn't sound like a destination, more of a pit stop along the way. Like the world's largest ball of twine. Boy was I wrong... on many counts...

Elk Viewing Area, Winslow Hill Road

First, let me say that our route initially consisted of a huge loop, going west through the PA Wilds Elk Scenic Drive, then north and back to the east across the northern tier. We stopped in Renovo and enjoyed the foliage festival for an hour, eating lunch there followed by maple cotton candy (sooo good!) before getting back on the road. Next stop was Benezette, in elk country. There's a loop of road on Winslow Hill with a few viewing areas. I was to discover that there are no fences, and the elk don't care if they're in a viewing area or not. On our way up to the first spot, through a community of cabins, we found a bunch of cars parked all over the road and people with cameras standing around oohing and ahhing. There were half a dozen elk cows moseying around in someone's front yard, grazing and napping and looking pretty boring, to be honest. But the amount of people there surprised me, even more so when we got to the actual viewing areas and found throngs of people who packed lunches, high-powered binoculars, and major camera setups. We spoke to a man from Corning NY and a couple from Ohio, who had been there on previous weekends and in prior years. This was not a side trip. They had driven hours *just* to (hopefully) see elk. Entire families planned their trips around this.

Elk cows and calves in a yard.
(Hubby took pics of the bull; I don't have those yet.)

The elk didn't show in any of the major viewing spots; however, farther down the road, a herd plunked down in a field near a parking area, while a smaller herd kept their distance farther off. The closest one had a huge bull with about 20 cows. He chased off a smaller bull just as we got there, then proceeded to lie down and watch over his harem while they napped and grazed. Again, except for the brief excitement with the younger bull and the fact that this massive animal was so close to us, the elk were fairly uninspiring to watch. They ate, slept, yawned... pretty much what I would be doing, if I weren't watching animals do the same thing... hey, wait a minute, something's not right here...

As we were leaving (much later than we planned, because we'd found some killer scenery, and of course we stopped with everyone else to watch elk) there was another posse of cars pulled over. This time we could barely see them up on the ridgeline, but we heard the bulls. We have heard the bugles of elk, y'all. And they sound like they need Ricola in a bad way.

Hear elk bugling

Needless to say, we didn't make the northern tier, or we'd still be on the way home. We turned south, picked up 80 and rode that into Lock Haven... all uneventful except for the brief moment we were on the "highest elevation on I-80 east of the Mississippi, 2250 feet." (I want to see that view again in the daytime.) It was a long but fun trip. Elk-watching is addictive in a weird kind of way so if you go, plan extra time for that and for exploring the area. The foliage should be in full color by the end of the month. We might go back!

Bad seafood! Bad!

I've been eating seafood pretty much my entire life. I was born near the ocean, into a family that fishes, crabs, and shrimps recreationally. Aside from that, I just like seafood and shellfish, and even if it's of questionable origin and on a menu in a landlocked-state Mexican restaurant (or whatever) I'll eat it. My husband is even more daring than I... he'll eat raw oysters off a buffet, which I just don't trust. We both eat sushi though.

My observation: In all these years, neither of us have ever gotten sick from seafood. Well, there was one time when we thought we'd had some bad shrimp, but it turned out to be a stomach virus that was going around. So... no. Yet one of the most popular excuses for a performer cancelling or no-showing a performance is that he/she was ill from eating bad seafood.

Let's pretend, for a moment, that their excuses are true and meant as "I ate bad fish" and not "I drank too much last night and I'm rocking a wicked hangover and I do not EVEN want to be near five thousand screaming lunatics today so I'm going to have some painkillers and vodka and go lie down for a day or two." Assuming the former, where do these people eat? One would think that celebrities, with their incredible demands and backstage lists and all, would not settle for anything less than the *best* food out there. We're not talking about Bubba's House O' Fish Planks, okay? (Except maybe in Britney Spears' case...) If I can eat a crab-cake sandwich from a stand at the local fair with no ill effects, surely these fancypants rich people can have their gourmet salmon without incident.

The whole thing smells fishy to me. I'm going with the hangover theory.

Crap Update

Our Crap arrived a couple weeks ago. I forgot to post it for the one person who wanted to know what manner of Crap we received.

Our Crap:

1. Really nice red and black backpack, easily worth the cost (non-crap)
   
2. One pack of two Jurassic Park 3-D puzzle sculptures (crap)
   
3. Two generic fabric-covered Lone Ranger-style masks, no elastic (crap)
4. One paper gift bag with handles (useful crap)
5. One "Super-Lite" mini keychain LED flashlight (non-crap, as I needed one)

For cost + shipping ($8 total) I believe we got decent Crap. The backpack alone was worth it.

New Frivolous Item: Microwave Locks

Passive-aggressive microwave owners, take note... er, make notes...?

I read through several of the comments. Most people assumed that no situation was bad enough to warrant getting one's own personal office microwave. The OP was over-reacting and employees cleaning up after themselves was the obvious solution.

They've obviously never worked for my company.

We have four nuke boxes and a refrigerator in one breakroom, and several more distributed throughout the other three breakrooms and office area. But none of them are ever clean... well, hardly ever. The temps and seasonal employees have serious cleaning aversions, as well as personal accountability ignorance and trash-can avoidance issues. The management tried to solve these problems by assigning one of them to do the daily cleaning of common areas and restrooms, but to no avail. She quit within two weeks and I have to wonder why it took that long. Surprised she didn't quit the first time she had to take rotten chicken parts out of the previously-clean-and-unused drinking cups. Or scrape up the food trash from behind the soda machine, where a large rat had relocated it piece by piece.* I noticed that having "one of their own" do the housekeeping hadn't slowed down their tendency to trash the place anyway.

Because of the constant state of the microwave interiors, crudded up by the varied items cooked therein (including, but not limited to, all manner of exploding cheeses and tomato sauces, bread bags and other assorted non-microwaveable plastics, and the occasional insect) I can honestly see why someone would want their own unit. I try to avoid using them at all. My supervisor has his own microwave in our office and I'll use that one on occasion. A padlock hasn't been necessary thus far. I can see it coming to that, though, if anyone else ever discovers it's there.

*I personally have done both of these, when we were between housekeeping solutions. I didn't quit only because my fool self had volunteered to clean the breakroom sight-unseen, and because after cleaning the men's bathroom, not much else could assault my senses that day with any real effect.

This Barn Isn't Big Enough For The Two Of Us

More peevish misspellings:

A manager at work apparently slept through part of English class. I know exactly when he dozed off, too... right in the middle of learning "cognizant." It's obvious, because he doesn't know that there is a third syllable in the word... he says "cogniz."
"Let's be cogniz of the fact..." And no, he isn't deliberately abbreviating it.

Browsing a message forum (always a hotbed of proper grammar and spelling, of course) I ran across another one that bothers me: "reigns." Not like the reigning queen of the trailer park, but used as reins: "He should hand the reigns over to..."
Now, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, it would be fine. In fact, the example I read today was intended as such. However, I see it misused so often that it warrants listing. If horses had reigns, who followed Mr. Ed to the throne?

The same people who use "reigns" seem to be notorious for "putting on the breaks." If I'm trying to stop in a hurry, and I get breaks, I'm in trouble... or maybe the deer I'm about to hit is the one in trouble... either way, it can't be a good thing. I try to avoid breaks as much as possible. By pulling back on the reigns, of course.